


Spell my name wrong and take me in your arms

by phacochere_9



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Abused Harry, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - College/University, Barista Louis, But Louis comes in to save the day, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Feminine Harry, Fluff and Angst, Harry's boyfriend is an asshole basically, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Harry, M/M, Physical Abuse, Protective Louis, References to Depression, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Student Harry, Student Louis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2019-09-02 06:07:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16781155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phacochere_9/pseuds/phacochere_9
Summary: Harry's in an abusive relationship. He meets Louis, the cute barista with all the tattoos.





	1. Tall Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte

**Author's Note:**

> Hey ! So this is my first fanfic ever and also not in my native language (mine is French), so, bear with me ;)  
> If you spot English mistakes, please tell me, I'll try to correct them.  
> Give me reviews ! Do you like it so far ?

_It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna go smoothly_ , Harry thought while locking his and Cameron’s apartment’s door and engaging in the stairs. Gonna be alright. Gonna go smoothly… Maybe if he thought it enough, he would make it real.  
See, Harry was not good with… Well, anything, actually… But more specifically first times, new things, social situations and.. god. The first day of uni was all of that. And more. And – shit. He was already sweating under his jacket. Breathing deeply, he made his way to the auditorium where the welcome speech for new students would take place. The deeper he got into the uni campus, the more and more people there were, walking in the same direction as him. Harry tried really hard not to panic as he shoved his headphones in his ears. Most people were already in little groups, talking and laughing amongst themselves. _How the fuck do they already have friends?_ Harry wondered in awe. He hadn’t spoken a word to somebody other than his boyfriend or the landlord since he moved, a week ago. Not that it mattered anyways, because he couldn’t really make friends. But still, it made him a bit insecure.  
He was there. A big auditorium with dozens of students pressing through the open doors. And too much noise, even with his headphones in and Troye Sivan’s new song up to the loudest volume. He got shoved a little to the side when a group of boys passed by him and he flinched. He was already overwhelmed, and he didn’t even enter the auditorium yet. Just great. Harry considered turning around and going home for a wild second, but then he would have to explain to Cameron how much of a coward he was, and somehow that perspective seemed even worse than having to face the crowd, so he continued walking.  
Older students were greeting the newbies by the door and giving them brochures. Harry approached timidly and received a grin from a short boy with brown, messy hair and blue eyes. He was only wearing a black top despite the cold mid-September London weather. Harry widened his eyes a little at the boy’s inked-up arms. It wasn’t that he had never seen tattoos before, he just didn’t expect that many on somebody as small and cute as this boy. Well – No. Not like that. Harry did not mean it like that. He didn’t think the boy was cute-cute, just that – Fuck. Harry couldn’t even defend himself in his own head, no wonder he was so shit at it in real life too.  
"See something you like?"  
Harry looked up, mortified, realizing he was staring. The boy was watching him with raised eyebrows and a devilish grin. Harry immediately broke in a sweat for the second time in an hour. After a few seconds of standing there dumbly he just averted his eyes, took the brochure the boy was holding out and got into the auditorium with his head hanging low. He thought he heard the boy laugh and something in his chest squeezed painfully, but he ignored it and focused on finding a seat.

Presentation was boring. Harry didn’t care, though. He just wanted things to go smoothly: go to the classes, pass the exams and get a degree. Nothing else. He already wished it was over, though. It was off to a good start…

Louis’ head was going to explode. If he had to answer to one more confused freshman that _yes_ , this was the B building, he couldn’t be held responsible if he bashed one of them into the wall of said B building. Not that Louis would ever do that. But you get the point : Louis was annoyed and ready to go back to bed. Why had he agreed to do this, again? Ah, right, Niall had convinced him. Why Niall would even volunteer to do this, though, Louis didn’t know. The kid valued his sleep way too much for that early shit.  
Oh. Never mind. The way Niall looked at the brunette giving out brochures next to him gave Louis a pretty good idea as to why they were stuck here. She was pretty but damn, why couldn’t Niall just, like, smile at her with that sunshine-grin of his? That would work just fine, and Louis wouldn’t have had to sacrifice his beauty sleep.  
That’s why, when Louis saw the pretty boy with the curls and the long legs staring, he took that as his opportunity to get out of his boredom and annoyance. Maybe he shouldn’t have, though, seeing how mortified the boy looked afterwards and how quickly he left. Louis almost felt guilty, but then the blush that covered the boy’s face came into his mind and he shrugged. Sue him, but he was the one to help create that overload of cuteness and Louis would lose zero hours of sleep over that.

Harry took a deep breath, standing outside his door. He opened the front pocket of his backpack to search for his keys and panicked for three seconds, thinking he lost it before his fingers finally closed on it. He brought it up to the lock and cursed himself when he saw he was shaking. _It’s the stress from today coming down_ , he thought and slipped inside quietly.  
"Harry ?" Cameron smiled at him from the couch, his eyes leaving his computer screen. "How did it go ?"  
"Hum. Good. It was – yeah, good."  
"Great ! Come here, baby."  
Harry breathed out and smiled. He had nothing to be anxious about. His boyfriend was right here, smiling with his arms open for a hug. It’s all Harry ever wanted.

So Louis hated working. It’s not that he was lazy – well. He kinda was. But the reason he hated his job in the campus’ café was because of all the grumpy, barely awake students craving coffee he had to deal with. And that at the ungodly hour of 8am. But he needed the money, so he tried not being too unpleasant with them, although he did have a lot of fun messing up people’s name on their cup. He was a pro at it. You’re named Robert? Louis would find a way to spell it "Robber". Or "Rôberte". Not that anyone was called Robert these days anyways, ew. (No offense to Roberts though.)  
"Hi, what can I get you?"  
The sentence was robotic now, it seemed to slip out of him almost unconsciously. He didn’t even look at the customer anymore, that’s how annoyed Louis was right now.  
"Hi."  
The warm, deep voice actually made Louis look up. He wasn’t disappointed he did, cause in front of him was none other than curly-hair-from-B-building himself. Louis smirked. This was gonna be good. The kid seemed to have recognized him too, because he looked very uncomfortable and didn’t say anything after that one word.  
"Hi", Louis repeated. "What can I get you, love ?"  
Curly blushed instantly at his words and oh, Louis was having fun. He watched as the kid audibly swallowed, shifted a bit then said:  
"Hum. Can I get. Hum, a tall skinny cinnamon dolce latte, please ?"  
Louis raised his eyebrows a bit at the command, amused. Not a lot of people ordered that. And when they did, it was usually really blonde, really white girls with really long nails, and Louis usually wanted to roll his eyes at them. But somehow, right now he didn’t feel the need to. Which was weird since Louis basically rolled his eyes at everything – Louis stopped his train of thoughts. Curly seemed to have read the expression on Louis’ face and was looking very embarrassed, and not the good kind. That won’t do. Louis quickly fixed his facial expression and smiled softly at the kid.  
"Sure ! What’s your name ?"  
He seemed caught of guard by that, and Louis quickly added ;  
"For the cup."  
"Oh. Right. Hum. Harry."  
"Okay. Be right back, Harry !"  
And with that he went to make the drink. Louis caught himself smiling while doing it, and, what the fuck. It was probably unhealthy to be so fond of a boy he only met twice. But hey, Louis couldn’t help it if the guy looked like a fucking kitten in human form. He quickly finished the drink, messily wrote “Hennry” on it and went back to the counter.  
"Harry", he called.  
"Thanks."  
He went to open his wallet but Louis put his hand on his arm to stop him.  
"Don’t worry about it!", he said with a big smile.  
He didn’t know why he did it, really. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t flirting a little, but it was honestly more because Harry seemed like a really sweet person and he put Louis in a good mood.  
But he didn’t expect the reaction he got at all. Harry looked up sharply and he seemed… Upset. Louis frowned. Why would anyone be upset about a free drink? He watched, confused as Harry quickly retrieved his hand from below Louis’ and shook his head frantically.  
"No, no, it’s… I mean, thank you, but I can’t…"  
He grabbed his wallet, opened it and threw a fiver on the counter. Louis couldn’t help but notice how much his hands were shaking. He took the money slowly and went to grab the change, but Harry shook his head.  
"Keep it."  
And then, almost as an afterthought :  
"Sorry."  
That didn’t make Louis feel better. Why was he apologizing ? He opened his mouth to answer, but Harry was already out of the door. Louis stared at it for a full five seconds before getting brought back to reality by a customer pointedly clearing their throat. _Rude_ , he thought, but turned to them and took their order.

Harry sniffled quietly over his sweet drink. He was sat at the back of the auditorium (he didn’t like having people behind him, he felt watched) and was still shaking a bit from the café encounter. He knew it was stupid to cry over that. But the barista was so nice and flirty to him, and Harry knew he must have sent him the wrong signals. It left him wondering if he did that with everybody, and just confirmed that Harry was a slut that flirted with everyone. He didn’t mean to, he really didn’t. Maybe he was too nice. Should he try being rude ? The thought made his stomach knot, but if it was what he needed to do to deserve Cameron’s love…  
He also felt bad because… Because the barista was actually cute. And Harry shouldn’t think of him like that, he really shouldn’t. But he had nice, warm eyes that crinkled when he smiled, and Harry just knew that if he knew how horrible of a person Harry actually was, he wouldn’t have given him that smile. He didn’t want the guy to lose his time and money on him.  
He rubbed a hand over his face and wrinkled his nose when it came back with snot on it. He searched into his bag to find tissues and banged his head into the desk when he went back up. He began blowing his nose and widened his eyes when he took in his surroundings and noticed that the lesson had already started, and long ago it seemed, since the teacher was already engrossed in the explanation of a concept Harry had never heard of. Great. He hastily got his computer out of his bag and started typing away.

The vision of big green eyes flooded with panic didn’t leave Louis’ mind all day. He didn’t know why, but it really bugged him. The kid wasn’t just awkward or embarrassed or even grossed out by his flirting. He looked… Actually terrified. Which left Louis wondering why. Was he a gay baby in the closet? That would make sense, if only Harry didn’t wear those skinny jeans and ordered a fucking tall skinny cinnamon dolce latte. Listen, don’t get Louis wrong: he knew these things didn’t mean you were gay. And he wasn’t complaining: those jeans were heavenly. But he just didn’t feel like that would be things a scared closeted gay guy would be comfortable with.  
Louis shook his head at his own thoughts. Maybe he just needed to shut up and stop trying to categorize the kid. He sighed and returned to his essay, deciding not to think about it anymore.  
Well, at least try not to.

So, Harry knew the sensible thing to do would have been to not return to the café. And he really set his mind to do just that, he did. But then he was in a rush this morning, and he was really tired because Cameron wouldn’t let him sleep last night, and he just really needed caffeine. And maybe sugar because he felt small and like he could break any second today, and sugar always comforted him when he was in those weird moods. Even though he shouldn’t get it because he was starting to look fat. Anyways, so the thing is, he went back. Just because of practicalities. And when he saw the blue-eyed boy was working, it didn’t make him feel anything at all. He approached the counter and the guy saw him and smiled a little, but not as brightly as the day before. It comforted Harry a little: he has probably figured out Harry wasn’t worth it.  
"Hi ! Let me guess : tall skinny cinnamon dolce latte ?"  
"Hum. Yeah. Thanks", he said, trying not to dwell on the fact that he remembered.  
While the employee fetched his drink, Harry let his thoughts wander to his mini-breakdown from yesterday and guilt popped its ugly head again, crushing him to the ground and making him grit his teeth. He probably should try being colder, but he really couldn’t bring himself to be mean to the guy. It just seemed _wrong_.  
The boy – Louis, Harry saw on his name tag – got his drink and Harry saw he wrote “Henrie” on it. It made him smile and he said tentatively :  
"Hum, you know I’m named Harry, right ? H-A-R-R-Y."  
Louis looked up, looking surprised, and then smirked.  
"Mh. I’ll try to remember for next time, then. Harry."  
Harry smiled. Somehow he knew his name would be spelled wrong next time too. He was actually curious how much time Louis would go before running out of ways to misspell his name. Harry felt himself starting to feel lighter at the banter, bad thoughts slowly slipping away.  
"Is it all?"  
Harry eyed the chocolate chip cookies behind the glass of the counter, bit his lip and nodded, bending down to search his wallet in his bag. However, when he came back up, Louis was handing him his drink and a cookie on a napkin.  
"Saw you were looking at those. We just made them, they’re fresh and warm, so, like, you should totally go for it, in my opinion."  
Harry blinked.  
"Hum. I. Thank you, but I don’ want –"  
"Just take the fucking cookie, mate."  
Harry widened his eyes.  
"Oh. O-okay, sorry", he said quickly, not meeting the boy’s eyes.  
He hated it when people were frustrated with him. And for some reason it just seemed to happen over and over again. Maybe he was just a frustrating person in general. He just kept messing up –  
"Harry ?"  
"Huh ?"  
"You just went in a weird place, mate", Louis laughed. "So, it’s 4,25, please."  
Harry frowned. That was the price of the drink. He opened his mouth to speak, but Louis beat him to it.  
"Don’t argue, come on. It’s on me. You just seem like you could use a good cookie."  
What did he mean by that ? Did Harry look that miserable ? He wasn’t – well, he kinda was, today, but it was 8 am and he hadn’t slept right. He didn’t want to agree to the offer (although it sounded more like a nice order than an offer), it was too much and if he took the cookie then he would _have_ to eat it. And he needed to be fit for his boyfriend. But he also really didn’t want to contradict the boy, so he just nodded shyly, paid and was off the door.  
He started to walk towards the auditorium, and suddenly the prospect of statistics didn’t seem that dreadful, and the air seemed a little bit easier to breathe.  
It was probably the caffeine.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 is here !:)  
> (Quick disclaimer : I don't know anything about Economics, so sorry if things are inacurrate.)  
> Also just to warn you, you start to see the abuse in this chapter.

It’s on Friday morning, when Harry was sat in the back of his Basic Economics class that it dwelled on him: he didn’t like Economics, he didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t what he wanted to do in life. When he listened to the teacher and tried to imagine working in that all his life, it made him want to die. He didn’t like the rigidness of it all, the strategies, the be-the-best-or-drown mentality, and he didn’t understand a thing in Maths.

It wasn’t that he was really surprised. He _knew_ Economics wasn’t what he was passionate about. But Cameron was doing his Masters in it, and he talked so well about it, made it seem like the only great cursus. He could hear his voice in his head: _Everything is about money and numbers in our society, Harry. You gotta keep up with it, or get crushed by it. Get back on Earth for once, it’s about your future here, not your little feelings!_

And so he had registered in it. And now he was fucked.

Harry wanted to bash his head into a wall. He knew Cameron was right. Economics were important, and it would bring him a bright future, economical safety, and a way to relate to his boyfriend. But somehow he couldn’t get himself to be interested in it, couldn’t keep his stupid thoughts about art and music away. He felt so guilty and inadequate and _wrong_ , and like he should disappear. There was no solution at all. He obviously couldn’t tell Cameron about it, Harry wasn’t _trying_ to make him mad or break up with him. Changing cursus behind his back wasn’t an option either, he couldn’t even imagine what would happen when he finds out. So staying seemed like the only option, but it was such a depressing one that Harry almost started crying right there.

But because he had no choice, Harry did the thing he did best: he shoved his feelings in the back of his mind and went on about his day as if everything was okay.

"Come ooon, Niall, it will be fuuuun!"

Louis was currently trying to get Niall to come to a party tonight with him. Which was weird, since Niall was usually the one to drag _him_ to social events, as the social butterfly he was.

"Lou, it’s gonna be boring. It’s organized by the Economics section."

Louis stared down at his friend, who was sprawled out on the couch with a plate full of reheated noodles from yesterday. It was 10am, but Louis knew better than to question Niall’s choices in food.

"That’s so mean! Who said they were boring?"

"Huh, the whole school?"

"Come on, it’s stupid stereotypes. The whole school also says English students are annoying and pretentious!"

Niall laughed, looking Louis up and down.

"Well…"

"Oh shut up!" Louis yelled, throwing his beanie at his roommate, who caught it easily. I’m not pretentious!

"You’re annoying tough", Niall laughed, but stopped quickly when seeing the death stare Louis was sending his way.

He sighed.

"Why do you want to go to this party so bad anyways? You never even go out anymore."

Niall wasn’t wrong. Louis hadn’t gone out in a while, mainly because he found he liked watching Netflix in his bed better, nowadays. And, believe him or not, he did have a lot of school work to do.

"Well, I miss it. I wanna get hammered and finally relax a little. And dance. And _flirt_ – do you know how much time it’s been since I had any sexual or romantic _anything_ with a boy, Niall? Way too long. It’s probably unhealthy. So… you can’t say no."

"Pretty sure I can."

"I woke up early and gave out hundreds of brochures on Monday for you to have a chance with the pretty brunette!"

Niall stopped chewing for a second at that, which Louis instantly took as a win.

Louis knew this was as close of a _yes as_ he would get, so he grinned and kissed Niall wetly on the cheek.

"Thanks Niall! Appreciate you, love you!"

And with that he was out of the living room and in his bedroom to do what he did best: get party-ready. He knew it was too early, but he was excited, and also determined to get shitfaced and get himself some boy action tonight.

And if that had a lot to do with the fact that the image of a scared Harry wouldn’t leave his damn brain, well, nobody had to know about it.

Harry wasn’t really the party type. But when Cameron announced they were going to one tonight, he couldn’t help but get a little bit excited. First of all, it was the first time in a while that they would go somewhere together, so that was good. That meant Cameron still wanted to be seen with him, despite the doubts Harry had started to develop over the past month, so he was happy about that. Second of all, that meant he would get to wear a nice daring shirt without it being weird – he was _so tired_ of wearing jeans and plain, boring sweatshirts all the time. And, lastly, the whole Economics section would be there, so that would be the perfect occasion to maybe make a friend. And it would probably be someone Cameron knew of so it would be okay, right? Harry just felt a bit lonely on campus sometimes. He felt stupid sitting all alone at lunch, and he often found himself just walking around like he had a purpose so that he didn’t look like a complete loser. Which sounded really pathetic now that Harry thought about it, but whatever.

Things started to go sour when Harry rushed out of their bedroom’s door, ready to go, and his eyes locked on Cameron’s. His boyfriend was already in his leather jacket by the door, looking irritated. When he looked down at Harry’s outfit and gritted his teeth, Harry immediately knew he fucked up. He had an urge to run back in the room and close the door, but he was frozen in place.

"What’s that?"

Harry gulped at the sharp tone and glanced down at his sheer shirt.

"A shirt? I- I like it? I mean- I mean I thought since it’s a party, maybe I could… Try something?"

"You thought you could try something, he said, irony and anger dripping from his tone. It’s not a fucking fashion show, Harry, and I don’t want people to see my fucking boyfriend’s nipples! It’s not too much to ask, is it?"

Harry shook his head.

"No, no, it’s… Not too much to ask. I can change if you want?"

He hated how weak his voice sounded. Cameron rolled his eyes and gestured for him to go back in the room to change, which Harry did quickly.

"And be quick, we’re already late!"

Harry quickly took off the shirt, looking at it for a second. He didn’t even think about it twice before deciding to wear it earlier. It wasn’t _that_ see-through, to be honest, and Harry just liked the style. Thinking about it now, tough, he realized he should’ve known Cameron wouldn’t appreciate it, and he mentally beat himself up for not realizing it before he ruined the mood and made his boyfriend angry at him. He should have known better.

Sighing, he went to place the shirt back on its hanger, but then thought better of it and just threw it in the trashcan beside the bed. He then threw on a random t-shirt along with a black jacket and left the room to join his boyfriend. He seemed calmed down, which made Harry breathe in relief.

"You look great, babe."

He placed a kiss on Harry’s temple.

"I just don’t want people to see your body like that. You’re all mine, yeah?"

Harry nodded his head, smiling up at Cameron when he took his hand in his to lead him off the door.

_Everything is fine. He loves me. He loves me._

Turned out, Harry had underestimated how much he hated parties. The swinging bodies, the smell of sweat and alcohol, the loud music made him anxious as he clutched his cup tightly. He hadn’t uttered a word since they arrived, except a few “hello” muttered to whoever Cameron introduced him to. The guy didn’t seem to mind. He was talking animatedly with a tall boy with brown hair and big puppy eyes. Harry thought Cameron introduced him as Liam, but he couldn’t be too sure. They were laughing loudly and it made Harry nervous. He kept looking at Cameron’s cup. It was almost empty of his sixth beer. Believe him, he counted.

He suddenly needed fresh air.

"Cameron?" He tried to capture his boyfriend’s attention, but to not avail.

"Cameron?" He tried louder.

Cameron didn’t hear him, but Liam (if it was his name) turned to him and smiled nicely.

"Cameron, your boyfriend’s talking to you."

"What?"

"I’m just gonna go outside, breathe for a bit, okay?"

Cameron nodded and didn’t say anything.

"Are you okay? Are you feeling sick?" Liam asked, worry on his face.

Harry tried to ignore his heart sinking at the fact that a stranger seemed to care more than his own boyfriend.

"No I’m fine, I just want to go outside for a bit. Thanks!"

He forced a smile and left quickly. Doing so, he reasoned himself: Cameron just knew Harry enough to see he was alright without asking. He pushed his way through the sweaty bodies, muttering little _sorry’_ s everytime he stepped on a foot or elbowed someone in the ribs. He finally saw the exit and made a beeline for it.

Louis was having the time of his life. Niall couldn’t have been more wrong: this party was everything but boring. It was huge, crowded, the alcohol was cheap, the music was shit but very loud, and everyone was beautiful. He was so thankful for everybody. Especially for Niall, who kept refilling his cup with various kinds of liquids. He closed his eyes, letting the beat submerge his body, the flashing lights making fireworks explode behind his closed lids. He felt like he was floating, mind free of worry, warm all over. He opened his eyes and decided to go outside to see if his mate Zayn had something to smoke. Louis didn’t know if he ever saw the guy _inside_ a party, he usually just chilled out outside, smoked and talked to the people there. He liked it quieter. So Louis stumbled his way out of the building and into the fresh air. The coldness made him sober up a little. He looked around but he didn’t see Zayn anywhere. Maybe he went home? He was about to turn around and go back inside when his eye caught a head of brown curls and sure enough, here he was when Louis looked back: Harry, looking as uncomfortable as ever, leaning against a wall with a red cup, clutching it like his life depended on it. Maybe Sober Louis would’ve been wise and stayed away from him; but he guessed he would never know, because Drunk Louis was already taking big steps in his direction.

"Hey, Curly!" He said with a wide grin.

"H-Hi…"

Louis wondered why the kid always looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. _He’s way too pretty for that_ , his drunk mind completed.

"So, what are you doing here?", he said when the silence stretched and it seemed obvious that Harry wouldn’t be the one to get the conversation going.

"Oh, hum, I’m… I’m in Economics. And my boyfriend is friends with the people who organized the party, so…"

He trailed off while Louis tried not to look _too_ disappointed. Of course he had a boyfriend, with his sweet personality and eight mile legs. It also made the in-the-closet theory fall apart.

"Oh, that’s nice. What are you drinking?"

The subject change was abrupt, but Louis was drunk, and he’d rather not talk about Harry’s boyfriend right now, so he just didn’t. He’d rather talk about what Harry liked to drink.

"Just – just Coke. I don’t really drink."

Louis smiled softly.

"Course you don’t."

There was a silence, and it wasn’t uncomfortable. It wasn’t exactly comfortable either, but still, _progress_ , Louis thought, because Curly didn’t seem to want to run away, so that was good.

Suddenly, Louis remembered what he came here for: to dance and flirt. Well, and forget about Harry, but it seemed like the universe wouldn’t let him get this one. So it was only natural that he asked:

"Hey, Curly, you dance? I wanna dance but all my friends left me."

He seemed uncomfortable again, but he was also smiling a little, so Louis thought it was okay to insist a bit.

"Come ooon, I wanna dance!"

Suddenly Harry was laughing, and Louis’ head was spinning. It was a really good laugh. Actually, it was the best laugh he had ever heard. It wasn’t shy or quiet like he maybe would have imagined, it was strong and deep and warm, and -

"You have _dimples_."

Harry was laughing again, and Louis wanted to make that happen more often.

"And you’re very drunk."

"Am not. I just wanna dance. Dance with me?"

That seemed to finally decide Harry, who simply nodded and walked back inside the building. Louis blinked once and then followed him quickly.

Harry knew, he _knew_ that it wasn’t a good idea, that all of this wasn’t going to end well. But Cameron hadn’t even seemed to notice that he wasn’t by his side anymore, and Harry didn’t have anything to say to his friends, even though they were nice. He just didn't belong in their world, and with every new topic of conversation he found himself left aside, not even knowing what they were talking about half the time. He wanted to try to have fun for a while, try not to cling to Cameron for dear life, and maybe make a friend of his own – and Louis was nice and funny, and made him feel safe. So even if they didn’t know each other at all, and he was 99% sure that Louis was way too confident and cool to be his friend, he wanted to at least _try_. He hadn’t had a connection with someone else than his boyfriend in so long, and it’s not that he wasn’t enough, because he loved him, and of course he was enough, but having one other person couldn’t be so bad, right ?

Or maybe it _was_ bad and Harry was just a bad boyfriend, but that wasn’t new. So he let Louis take his arm and drag him to the middle of the dance floor. The bodies bumping into him made him nervous. But he looked at Louis and the boy seemed so carefree and happy, his eyes sparkling with the neon lights, that Harry forced himself to take a big breathe, close his eyes, let the beat take over his body and let himself go.

Louis was _really_ having the time of his life. Harry was pretty in the green and blue lights; and he was smiling lightly, his eyes closed, like he was listening closely to the music and getting lost into it. It was an Ariana Grande song, not as bad as everything else they had played that night, and Louis approved if it made Harry seem this peaceful and carefree. It was quite the transformation really. Louis felt like it was a glimpse at someone that Harry could have been, could still be, if he had confidence in himself, and somehow it made Louis really emotional, and like it was a precious thing he was witnessing. He wanted to bottle it so he could re-watch it when he felt down and lost faith in the world. Louis was already feeling way too many things towards a boy he literally only spoke a few sentences to. He was also very drunk, but honestly, he knew these two things had nothing to do with each other. He also knew for a fact that it would only get worse the more and more time he spent with the boy, but Louis was strangely okay with that. So when he felt himself lean in and cup Harry’s cheek to kiss him, he just let it happen. It was bound to happen really. He vaguely knew he shouldn’t, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember the reason why, and quite frankly, Louis did not care. So he went in with instinct and just kissed him.

The music was good, the lights were blinding him, and the lips on his were soft and tasted good. Like mint and - Everything stopped. Harry’s heart, the warmness he felt, even his breathing. It wasn’t Cameron’s lips on his but Louis’. Louis’ lips were on his and - Oh _god._ He stepped back immediately, almost falling over in his haste to do so. That couldn’t be happening, it just couldn’t, he couldn’t have fucked up that bad. Harry’s ears were ringing as he stared dumbly at Louis, who seemed worried. His lips were moving but Harry wasn’t listening. He reluctantly trailed his eyes to where he knew Cameron was minutes ago, praying, praying, but he fell right into his eyes. He froze and they just stared at each other for what seemed to be hours. Cameron started to walk towards them and Harry’s mind went blank, eyes following his every move, not paying any attention to Louis who was still talking besides him. Then Cameron was there. He said something to Louis, but Harry couldn’t focus on it, everything too blurry around him, and then there was a grip on his arm and they were out the door and _oh god. Oh god. Oh god._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humm.. yeah. So I'm really sorry to leave you on that note, but I felt like that was the ending of the chapter and adding anything would be weird.  
> Tell me what you think, I'd love to hear what you have to say!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3's here !!  
> TW : mentions of violence, mentions of blood  
> I also wanna warn everyone that I'm starting my exams soon and it lasts until the 25 of January, so there probably won't be any updates, or not a lot, in that period. BUT when I procrastinate from studying I write, so everything's possible !  
> Enjoy !

When Louis kissed Harry and he saw panic flood his face, he was worried. When a guy suddenly appeared out of nowhere, mumbled something Louis couldn’t pick out but that really sounded like an insult and then left with Harry, he was really worried because _oh_ , Harry had a boyfriend, and that’s why he shouldn’t have kissed him. But when Harry didn’t push the café door on Monday, and then not on Tuesday either, or Wednesday, or the whole week, the word ‘worry’ had become the understatement of the year. But because Louis had never been one to stress over things he knew he had no control over, he tried to force himself to relax. The kid probably just found another café. He didn’t own Louis anything, they weren’t even friends. Maybe he wanted to escape the awkwardness of having to face Louis after the other night. Maybe he was just slowing down on the caffeine. Whatever it was, Louis didn’t need to lose sleep over it. So he focused on school and work and trying to get Niall to clean the apartment (there had been an unidentified brown stain on the carpet for a month and they were really starting to run out of clean plates), and that kept him busy enough to stop thinking about the cute freshman with the long legs. Kind of.

Maybe Harry was a bit self-destructive. That’s the only reason he could come up with for as to why he went back to the café the next Monday, after the shit week he just had. And he couldn’t even pretend it was because he wanted coffee, really. He wanted to see the blue-eyed barista. He couldn’t really explain why, exactly. Maybe because sadly, his awkward talks with Louis were kind of the only human interactions he had had since he moved here (else than with his boyfriend of course). Maybe because Louis seemed to carry around a softness, and a warmness, that Harry desperately wanted to be around. Or maybe because he had nothing else to do besides going to classes that he hated.

Walking through that door somehow felt like some sort of suicide, though, because Cameron had made it very clear that Harry was not to see Louis again. If he learnt –or rather when, because Harry really couldn’t hide anything from him- he would be positively livid. That thought alone made Harry’s throat close on itself, memories from _that_ night creeping their way in his brain again: the overwhelming shame clouding his mind, and the pain, and the red everywhere – in Cameron’s eyes, on the floor, on his hands. And the broken glass, the rancid smell of alcohol, his hands shaking, sobs bitten back, and the _sorry’_ s, and the _please_ ’s. And his skin scrubbed red to try to make it all go away. All of it rushing back to him like a big flashing warning sign, but because he was an idiot he still pushed that door and got in the line.

Or maybe he just didn’t care what happened to him anymore.

The first thing to go through Louis’ mind when he saw a familiar head of curls appear during his 8am shift was _thank God_. Now, Louis was not religious, but _thank God, thank God, thank God._ Louis could pretend he was relieved because Harry was a good way to get him out of his Monday morning misery, but who was he kidding at this point? He was relieved because thank fucking God, the kid had come back. Even though he tried very hard to distract himself all week, the thought of never seeing these stupid dimples again still popped up against his will at regular intervals and it made him sad. Well, maybe _sad_ was an understatement, but Louis was trying to conserve a minimum of dignity, thank you very much.

Now, it was the time where Louis had to really concentrate in order to _not fuck up_ and not scare him away. For some reason Louis felt like he had to be extra careful with Harry, watch his words for once, smooth out his sharp edges a little. Not because he thought Harry was weak, but because he looked precious and sensitive, and like someone who would easily get upset if an extroverted idiot like Louis said the wrong thing without thinking.

He worked really fast to give their drinks to the customers who were ahead of Harry in the line, because he just wanted them out of the way already. And then he was there. They looked at each other for a few seconds, shyly. And then:

"The same as usual?"

Louis was rewarded with a dimpled smile. He smiled back and started to make the drink, forcing himself to _stay fucking calm, Louis_. He came back with it quickly, but kept it clutched in his hand.

"Okay, so, I’m just going to say it… I’m sorry for what I did at the party."

Harry looked taken aback.

"Hum, he said, his voice very slow and warm. Thanks, but – why?"

"‘Cause I kissed you, Louis whispered, because the whole place didn’t need to know that. And I shouldn’t have assumed that you would want to, I should’ve asked you, and you _told_ me that you had a boyfriend, so I – yeah, I shouldn’t have done that. So… Sorry."

And, okay. Louis _knew_ he was shit at apologies. He didn’t give them very often - well, more like never. He hated to admit that he was wrong. But right now he found himself wishing he was better at them, because Harry would have deserved something better than whatever _that_ was.

To Louis’ horror, Harry’s eyes seemed to water, and, shit, what had he done?

"Hey, hey! Don’t… Don’t cry, I’m sorry, I…"

Louis was frantic but also trying to be quiet, getting really close to Harry’s face in the process so that people didn’t hear. And _no_ , it didn’t hurt when Harry took a step back, he told himself. Not at all.

"No, no. I’m – I’m okay. Thank you."

"For what?" Louis asked, baffled.

"Apologizing."

Louis raised his eyebrows. Since when did you thank someone for apologizing? He was about to tell him just that, but the guy behind Harry cleared his throat loudly, looking at Louis pointedly, annoyance written on his face. Louis rolled his eyes. _Fuck off_ , he thought, but because he needed the job, he said “I’ll take your command in a minute” instead. He thought the message still got through in his tone, though, since the guy shut his mouth with an indignant look.

He turned back to Harry.

"Okay, so. I was wondering if you’d let me buy you a drink someday as an apology? Somewhere else than in this shithole?"

So yeah, that wasn’t subtle. Like, at all. Because yes, he did want to apologize, but it was mostly just an excuse to try to know the kid and to buy him disgustingly sweet drinks and chocolate chip cookies. He knew it was quite obvious, but whatever.

Louis looked at Harry and he looked mortified, and the realization hit him that maybe Harry thought he was trying to hit on him, so he quickly added on:

"As friends of course! Promise. Only if you want, though."

An awkward silence stretched out and Louis was about to retract his invitation and tell him to forget he ever said anything, but then Harry nodded very slowly, and Louis smiled, relieved.

"Already put my number on your cup. Text me, yeah?"

He smiled brightly at Harry, who reciprocated with a significantly more hesitant one.

He then waited until the boy was completely out of view before slowly turning to the dickhead who was next in line. And if he accidentally dropped a bit too much of red pepper into his drink, well, Louis was only human, right?

Harry almost turned around and went home a total of eight times during his walk to the café Louis and him had agreed on. The possibilities of everything that could go wrong were echoing in his head, banging against his skull. What if someone Cameron knew saw them? What if Cameron hadn’t believed his lie about a group work and was waiting pissed at home, or worse, searching for him on campus? What if Louis just wanted to sleep with him? What if Harry had nothing to say and made a fool of himself? What if it was all just an elaborate prank to laugh at how desperate Harry was to make friends? And then also : what if Louis and him actually became friends? What good would come out of that, if he had to lie to his boyfriend every time he wanted to see him? He clenched his fists and continued walking, turning the volume on his phone up in hopes that Demi Lovato’s voice would drown out the anxiety. (It did not work.)

The café wasn’t far from the campus, so he quickly got there with the good help of Google maps. He checked two times it was the right address, and, yep, that was it. But if he thought walking there was difficult, actually entering the place proved to be even more challenging. He hovered by the door for a good five minutes, his thoughts not shutting up and his hands not wanting to stop shaking. It was a testament to how terrified Harry was that even the overbearing embarrassment from how awkward he looked wasn’t enough to get him out of his frozen state. When he finally gathered up the courage to grab the door handle, he was a few minutes late, which really wasn’t his style, but he really couldn’t focus on that right now.

So he entered, and it was _nice_. The place was warm, the colors too, jazz music was coming out of the speakers and the few people there were quiet. It felt homey and it eased Harry’s nerves a little.

He looked around and spotted Louis, already sat in a booth with his back to him. He swallowed and forced himself to walk over there before he lost his nerve all together and ran away.

He sat down and Louis looked at him and smiled.

"Hey! I’m happy you came!"

This made Harry strangely emotional. He was subconsciously awaiting a remark on his retard, or how disheveled he knew he looked, but Louis went ahead and hit him with the nicest thing, that, let’s be honest, he didn’t deserve one second. But hell if he wasn’t going to bathe in it while it lasted.

As Louis started talking about something, Harry zoned out and just looked at him, astonished. He seemed to come from another world all together, everything about him felt so… Foreign. The free, unnecessary niceness, the careless manners, the loud laughs, the warm looks. He looked like he wasn’t worried about a thing in the world, genuinely just happy to be here and now, not overthinking anything, not battling with his own thoughts, and Harry couldn’t even wrap his head around that. But he wanted to, God did he want to. Even if he knew this wasn’t his life and would never be, knew he would never be as sincerely happy and unguarded as the blue-eyed boy in front of him, he desperately wanted to stay close to that, look at it, know it existed in the world. Forget about the mean words and the rough hands, just for a moment.

"Harry? You in there?"

Harry opened his eyes wide, horrified. He totally didn’t listen to anything Louis said since he sat down, just straight up stared at him, and that was so _creepy_ and _rude_ and why was Harry like that?

His thoughts got cut off when Louis chuckled, looking genuinely unbothered, which once again blew Harry’s mind, but, whatever. He needed to act like a proper human being right now and respond and talk, since that’s what they were here for in the first place.

"I’m sorry, I – yeah. Sorry. Hum. I just kinda – zoned out, I guess. I’m sorry."

"No worries, Harold!"

Harry was about to tell Louis that he was in fact, not named Harold, but the waitress came up to them and now he was stressing out about what he should order since he didn’t think about that and he wasn’t ready and fuck.

When that was taken care of with minimal awkwardness (considering Harry was there and he tended to make the awkwardness level ten times higher just by entering a room), they refocused on each other, and Harry was baffled at how easy and fluid it all was. Sure, there was clumsiness and stuttering on his part, sure, his hands were shaking, but they were _communicating_ and it was going really well, everything was going so well, and Harry could cry. Louis was too nice and it made him feel weird. That was not normal, yet it felt so good and he never wanted it to end.

Harry was feeling a lot of things and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

It seemed like all of a sudden it was dark outside, and Harry was genuinely surprised as he looked outside. They got here at three, and it was already five, time flying at an astonishing rate.

Suddenly the text message he had sent Cameron saying “Group project to do this afternoon if it’s okay, be there at 4, love you xx” appeared in his mind in flashing colors, and all the warmth and comfort he was feeling seemed to just evaporate, replaced with anxiety, and just like that he was back in reality. In reality where he was Harry, Economics student Harry, not talking to family Harry, economically and psychologically dependent on his boyfriend Harry, Harry who didn’t have friends or a talent or a job or anything other than Cameron. And what was he doing, risking to lose his one constant, his one rock, for a little coffee conversation with a boy way too good for him anyways?

So he hastily said goodbye and left. Once outside, he pulled his hood over his head to protect himself from the rain, put his headphones in and headed to his apartment, shoving the feeling of dread aside. Could his emotions just fuck off for one minute and leave him alone?

That night, lying on the couch while absently watching the X Factor with Niall (who was gulfing down a burnt looking pizza at an impressive pace), Louis was happy. Because the coffee encounter went, if he said so himself, very well. Harry seemed nervous, but when they started talking he loosened up and Louis liked what he saw when that happened.

Louis made a list of things he learned about Harry:

  1. The kid liked a weird mixture of mainstream pop music and obscure indie bands that Louis had never heard of,
  2. He seemed to make an effort to be really quiet, but if Louis made the right joke he would let out an obnoxiously loud laugh and try to cover it with his hand,
  3. He had a habit to push his curls behind his ear that Louis would say was adorable, but… Fuck it, it was adorable. In a _friendly way_ of course,
  4. He had a sister named Gemma, but he got all weird and quiet when Louis tried to ask more questions about his family, so he just classed that in the “for later” file in his mind to investigate later,
  5. There was something weird about his boyfriend. Now, Louis knew he didn’t have any right to snoop in and judge their relationship, but the way Harry sounded when he talked about him (in a mixture of deference and agitation that made Louis uncomfortable), the way the boy seemed way too stressed and left way too precipitately when he realized he was late to meet him, the way the guy had looked when grabbing Harry at the party (“the way” meaning furious), and the way Harry had looked in return (hear: terrified)… It all made him wonder. He didn’t want to assume worst case scenario, so he just stocked the information in the back of his head for safe keeping and changed the channel, laughing at Niall’s yells of “Heeey, I was watching that!”



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm unsure about this chapter, so tell me what you think? I'm all for constructive criticism. Also tell me your predictions for the future !  
> Thanks for reading !:)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who wrote this instead of studying ?;) Don't regret any of it tough. Enjoy !

"Shut the fuck up!"

Harry backed away against the wall of their bedroom, mouth shut. Things were blurry. His heart was beating loudly in his temple, his mind blank. He didn’t even remember what led them there. Cameron’s scream was still echoing in the air, the following silence deafening. Harry stared at the floor between them, immobile, waiting. He knew it was coming. It was a matter of seconds, he knew – started to count coldly in his head, one, two, three, four – It was happening. His body screamed in pain but he didn’t, his body begged for it to stop but he didn’t. He let it happen. Didn’t shed a tear and didn’t make a sound. He was tired. He waited for it to stop, because it always did, eventually. It always stopped and then things were normal again. And really, it didn’t matter. None of it mattered because Harry just had to be better next time and everything would be okay. He just had to be better and everything would be back to how it was.

An hour later, lying in bed, eyes wide open with Cameron snoring beside him, he was still thinking about how he could fix this. _Maybe if we have sex more, or if we go out more, it’ll be ok. Yeah, I’ll be good, I’ll be better and we’ll be like before. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me._

But then as he repeated it over and over again like a mantra, a little voice inside him kept chanting _he doesn’t, course he doesn’t, look at you,_ and that made fear crawl up on him and crush his chest.

He closed his eyes tight, closed his mind tighter, and forced himself to _go to sleep, stop thinking, shut up._

The next night Harry was making pasta for Cameron and himself, a Lorde song playing in his headphones. He turned around and looked at his boyfriend, who was studying out of a horrifyingly thick Laws of Economy textbook at the kitchen table. His thoughts from the night before came in his mind. He should do it. He should try to make it better, to make it like it was before. He removed his headphones and went for it, voice shaky.

"Cameron?"

"Mh?"

He didn’t look up from the textbook, brows furrowed, and Harry gulped, tempted to just back away and not say anything. His hands were already moist, breathing a bit too quick. Why was he panicking over asking his boyfriend on a date? They’d been together for two years, god dammit, and Harry was a big baby.

"Do you wanna go on a date?"

"What?"

"I – I was just thinking that – maybe… Maybe it would be good for us if we went on dates more often? Like. Maybe – maybe…"

_Maybe you wouldn’t be so angry at me all the time if we took the time to fall in love all over again._ He didn’t dare look Cameron in the face as he continued.

"What I’m trying to say is, our relationship hasn’t been like… The best… lately, and I think maybe it would fix it if we went on more dates? Like before?"

_Please say yes, let’s be like before again, please love me, please please please -_

"What do you mean not the best?"

His face was immobile, no emotion showing, and his voice was cold. It made a shiver run along Harry’s spine.

"You know. The – the yelling. And. The other things."

And – oh. Harry hadn’t planned to say that. There was this unspoken rule between them that they ignored it, never acknowledged any of it. And now his words rang in the air, loud and clear, and it was just so weird, to hear it said, pronounced. It made it more real, and Harry didn’t like that, but at the same time it felt good to have it out in the open instead of trapped inside his own mind.

But Cameron’s face now showed nothing but rage, and, _not good_. Harry was familiar with it by now but it still made him ache inside, to see this beautiful face, the face that used to show complete adoration for him, twist into that ugly expression of anger and disgust. He hated that face, _hated_ it, but then he also loved it too much and Harry was just so confused. They watched each other silently for what seemed like hours but was probably minutes, Harry’s mind a mess of _stupid stupid you fucked up you fucked up oh my God,_ and then Cameron was standing up and by his side in a second and Harry couldn’t breathe. He barely had the time to look at him before Cameron was gripping a handful of his hair and tugging on it roughly. It made his head tilt and Cameron got in his face, breath fanning over him, as he muttered:

"Don’t you dare ever talk about that again."

Harry just watched him with wide eyes. Cameron tugged again and Harry yelped.

"Don’t. Talk. About. It. To anyone. Understood?"

Harry nodded his head the best he could with the death grip Cameron had on his hair, blinking hard against the tears gathering in his eyes.

"Answer me!"

"U- understood. Won’t talk about it."

The grip disappeared and Harry lowered his head, breathing out. He carefully looked up at Cameron through his lashes, and his face seemed to have softened, so he breathed a little.

"I’m just saying that to protect you, Harry. To protect us. People don’t understand what we have. They’d try to break us apart. But they can never do that, can they?"

Harry shook his head no. No matter how much it hurt, what they had was all Harry had. He couldn’t lose it, would be nothing without it, would be no one without Cameron.

"You just have to be patient with me, yeah? I love you. You know that, baby, yeah?"

That hit Harry hard, because he didn’t. Somewhere along the line he started doubting that Cameron actually loved him. But that was absurd, because they had loved each other for so long and they always used to say that they were a forever thing, and Harry could never give up on that. He built all of his dreams and aspirations and visions of the future with Cameron in mind, for him. Harry’s dreams of a wedding and a house with a big garden and flowers and a puppy and maybe a kid someday, even though he knew they were naïve and kind of dumb, were sometimes the only things that kept him going, and he truly didn’t think he could handle having that taken away from him.

Cameron was now looking at him right in the eyes, big brown eyes and warm smile, and he looked younger, like the boy he fell in love with.

Harry finally answered his question, just nodding again, eyes watering again.

"Eh, eh, don’t cry. Everything’s alright baby, I promise."

He softly ran his fingers under Harry’s eyes, and then pulled him in a hug.

"It’s you and me forever, yeah? We can go through anything, and we’ll go through this. I promise. I love you."

Harry closed his eyes and bathed in the kind words, drowning out everything else, desperately silencing the strings of _not true not true he’ll hurt you again_ and _stupid stupid he doesn’t love you_. He just wanted to believe everything would be alright, even just for a second.

After a while Cameron went back to his textbook, Harry went back to his pasta, and they never went on that date Harry had talked about.

Louis was just trying to find out at what point it would be acceptable for him to contact Harry again. He resisted for two days, which was already an exploit on its own since Louis was not known to be the most patient person to grace this Earth. He called him at 5 pm on Thursday, when he figured Harry wouldn’t be in class. It only rang once and went straight to voicemail. Louis didn’t know if he should be worried or offended. He settled on ‘vaguely sad’ and decided to call back later.

He called back two hours later and the exact same thing happened. He forced the disappointment away and put his phone on plane mode for the rest of the night, so he wasn’t tempted to call back and didn’t check for notifications every two seconds.

"Why’d you look so down, did someone die?"

"Shut up, Niall", Louis sighed, plopping down on the couch next to him.

Niall eyed him suspiciously, but just shrugged and turned his attention back to the football game.

Harry was power walking across the campus to try not to be late to class when he suddenly remembered Louis’ calls from yesterday. He had hurried to hang up because Cameron was there, and he honestly hadn’t thought anything of it, too focused on trying to keep things good with his boyfriend to think about Louis at all. Now though, he slowed his pace down, getting worried. Was Louis mad? Did he think he was ignoring him? The thought made something twist painfully in his belly. He extirpated his phone out of his skinny jeans’ pocket and looked at the time. 8:07. His class started at 8, he was already late and the doors would probably be locked by the time Harry got there (the teacher was a grumpy old man who always looked angry at the world and closed the door at 8:10 so that the late students couldn’t come in). He stopped in his tracks, wavering for a while until he shakily opened his contacts, scrolling through the (embarrassingly short) list to find Louis. He took a big breath and pressed “call”. He didn’t have time to freak out before Louis was already answering, sounding out breath.

"Harry?"

"Yeah… Hi."

"Hi."

Silence.

"I’m calling because you tried to yesterday. Did you want to… Talk to me? Or something?"

_Smooth_ , Harry scolded himself, rolling his eyes at his own awkwardness.

"Yeah. Thought you didn’t wanna talk to me or something."

"I’m sorry, I was just – busy, hum, with – something, and I just had to hang up, and then I – I forgot, I guess? ‘m sorry. It wasn’t to be rude or anything, just – yeah, busy."

Harry bit his lip, _hard_ , at how shit that excuse was, guilt rushing over him in waves.

"No worries, Curly. I’m happy you called back. I called you to see if you would be down to go for coffee again sometime soon?"

Harry could hear the smile in the boy’s voice and it made him breathe a little. Maybe Louis didn’t hate him after all.

"I mean… I’d like to, and I really had fun last time, but… I think I shouldn’t-"

"Oh come on Haz, it’ll be fun, I’ll get you cookies! And after that we can go in the park and watch the squirrels!"

Harry smiled at that, dimples and all. The nickname made his heart jump in his chest. Nobody ever gave him nicknames anymore, now that he didn’t see his mum. Even Cameron just called him Harry. Sometimes baby. Right, Cameron.

"Louis, my boyfr-"

"Please?"

And he could hear the pout in his voice, and maybe Harry was weak, but he really couldn’t bring himself to say no to that. So they made plans to meet after Louis’ shift, at 10am, and that was that.

Louis hated to be pushy, is the thing. He hated interrupting Harry like he did and playing with feelings to get him to meet him again. It felt wrong. But Louis’ instinct was telling him not to let this boy go at any costs, not to let him withdraw into himself and hell, his instinct had never failed him so far. Maybe it was unhealthy how protective of the kid he was already.

Louis couldn’t bring himself to care.

After coffee they ended up lying down in a secluded part of the park, looking up at the tree tops and the morning sky, which was blue, for once. Sure, there were lots of clouds too, but they were white and fluffy, unthreatening. Beautiful. Louis looked at his right, ogling Harry’s profile. _Beautiful too_. Harry turned his head too and smiled at him.

"I like it here", he said, voice low and timid.

"Me too. I always come here when I’m feeling overwhelmed. It helps me relax. No one ever comes here, so it feels like – my own little happy spot, y’know?"

Harry opened his eyes wide.

"But you… Now that I know it, isn’t it, like - ruined?"

Louis smirked.

"I’m happy to share it. Gets lonely. Besides, could you even ruin anything even if you tried?"

The tone was teasing and light, but Harry’s expression didn’t match it.

"If you only knew…"

He said it in a breath, so quiet that Louis didn’t think he was supposed to hear it. Except he did. He also heard the self-deprecating little laugh Harry breathed next. It made his heart ache. He bit his lip and looked away, back at the sky, and didn’t say anything. Harry did the same.

They stayed there, just breathing next to each other, for far longer than either of them would be willing to admit.

Until:

"Louis?"

"Yeah?"

"I… I have a boyfriend, yeah?"

"Yeah, I know that, love. Even met him, remember?"

Something flashed in Harry’s eyes, something like _fear_ and _hurt_ , but it was gone in a second and Louis thought maybe he just imagined it.

"Yeah. Hum. He- He doesn’t like me seeing… Other guys… Hum, than him. And, like, he was… Sad… After he saw us at the party, when we, uh-"

He paused for a second, swallowing, before continuing without finishing the sentence:

"So he wouldn’t like knowing that we hang out. And - that’s reasonable, right? I understand. But. I like… I like being with you. I just feel like we could be best friends, yeah?"

"Yeah, for sure", Louis jumps in, feeling the need to validate him.

"And it’s not like we’re gonna do anything. We’re just friends. I just don’t think he would really understand that, and… I just, I don’t want to give it up, but… Do you think it’s wrong, what I’m doing?"

Louis wanted to scoff at that. Roll his eyes and tell him that _of course not, there’s nothing wrong with having friends and any partner that gets their panties twisted because of it need to chill the fuck out._ But Harry looked so insecure, looking at Louis wide-eyed, waiting for his answer like he was the Messiah or something, that Louis said softly instead:

"No, it’s not wrong, Curly. You’re not cheating on him. You have the right to have your own time and space, yeah? It’s normal. You can’t always be together! And then, when you _are_ with him, you’ll appreciate it more."

It left a bad taste in his mouth, advising Harry on how to appreciate this guy’s presence more, but Harry’s grin after he said it and the appearance of his dimple made it all worth it.

After that they just laid back, content to look at the sky quietly for another thirty minutes.

Harry thought about it, really thought about it. He even wrote a little list with the pros and cons in the margin of his sheet one day in class.

He was stressed, and conflicted.

Cameron was his boyfriend and he loved him, and he hated the idea of doing anything that would upset him, hated having to lie to him. The idea of seeing Louis behind his back made him really anxious, because somewhere in the back of his mind he just knew that it was only a matter of time until he found out. It just seemed so wrong, but then why did it feel so right when he was with Louis? His mind was tearing itself apart, instinctual urge to please Cameron clashing against the desire to seek out the calmness and lightheartedness Louis provided to him. Because things with Louis were easier, lighter, made him feel like a teenager. He gave him cookies, he made him laugh. Nothing was loaded, nothing was scary.

He didn’t think he could give that up even if he tried.

So they started texting regularly and no matter how many times Harry told himself this had to stop, and quick, he didn’t do anything to stop it. He became eager to lock himself in the bathroom or go out of the apartment just so he could look at whatever stupid things Louis had sent him. It felt dangerous, survival instincts kicking in sometimes and leaving him breathless, paralyzed with his phone still in hand, all the horrible things that could happen rushing to his brain in a whirlwind of pain and fear and hurt. He started going to Louis’ café again too, every morning before his classes, going out with a free drink and a chocolate chip cookie every time (“Now that we’re friends you’re never paying for that again, Harold. Don’t fight me.”). There were loud yells in his head, varying on the themes of _worthless stupid liar stop it_ and _he’s gonna kill you danger danger_ every day. But somehow it was the other voice, the one that was chanting _Louis Louis Louis_ , that, although quieter, still kept him coming every morning and responding to every text.

In conclusion, Harry got himself into a big mess that he didn’t know how to get out of. He never was the best at self-preservation, but this time, he thought, sitting on the closed lid of the toilet one night, Louis’ and his conversation open with Cameron sleeping in the other room, there was no way this was ending well.

_Shit_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's been leaving comments and kudos, it makes me happy :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So here's a chapter. It's been a long time, I've been going through some shit that I'm not going to bore you with.   
> Enjoy!:)

“Hey Curly!”

“Yeah?”

“You wanna come over to mine’s tonight? You could meet Niall. Not that it’s worth it-”

Harry heard an indignant voice in the background and smiled, figuring it was Niall.

“… But, y’know. You’re my good friend, and he’s my… Well, my roommate at most-”

Fighting and giggling was heard again before Louis’ voice turned serious:

“Nah, he’s my best friend. And I’d like you to meet. I mean if you want.”

“Oh, that’s… I’d like it, Lou, but I… I can’t.”

Silence. Harry knew Louis was disappointed, but there was no way he could make Cameron agree to this. Then, very quietly:

“Is it because of your boyfriend?”

He hesitated. And then:

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“O-okay. I have to go. I’ll come get coffee tomorrow?”

He hadn’t meant that to sound like a question, but it did. He could hear the smile in Louis’ voice when he answered a simple:

“‘f course. Have a nice day Harold.”

They hung up and Harry stared at the pavement for a full ten seconds before making his way back to his apartment.

“Cameron? D’you love me?”

Cameron didn’t raise his head from his book.

_I hate this. I hate this. I hate this_ , Harry thought while staring at the teacher from the back of the auditorium. He didn’t even remember the name of the class but he _hated_ it, and didn’t understand any of it, either. Not that he tried that hard to, if he was being honest. Anxiety rose in his chest. His grades were going to be so bad, and then he would probably fail and what would happen and – _Calm the fuck down._ Wanting a distraction, he took his phone out and opened his contact list, planning to text Cameron to get out of his misery. But his eyes caught Gemma’s name instead, and instead of scrolling down and blocking out any kind of emotion like he usually would, it took him by surprise and everything seemed to stop. He stared at it, and stared at it, and stared at it until his vision became blurry, his nails digging in his leg, teeth clenched tight. It hit him right in the face how much he missed his big sister, how much he wanted to call that number and hear her voice. _It’s been four months._ A brutal wave of sorrow and longing came crashing down on his auditorium seat with a loud roar, crushing him. He was that close to start sobbing right there, right then. _Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry_ , he repeated to himself, taking shaky breaths and furiously forcing the tears away. His sister. They used to be so close. She always knew what to say, was the one he came to with his problems. She had such great big sister advice, and always accepted him, and he just – He just wished he could call her.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t.

So he forced his eyes away from the contact and sent Cameron a quick _‘Hope you have a good day, love you’_ with a bunch of emojis instead. The “seen” mention appeared a few seconds later and Harry smiled a little. It would be okay, he had his boyfriend, he didn’t need anyone else, right? But then it stayed like that, no little dots telling him his boyfriend was writing, and that stupid “seen” mocking him. One minute. Two minutes. Harry stopped smiling. He tried to turn his attention back to the teacher but he couldn’t, checking his phone every minute, his mind running a hundred miles a second. As the hour went by with no answer in sight, he found himself wanting to cry. And a voice in his head was going _it’s just a text, stop being so sensitive, come on, it’s just a text._ And another was going _stupid stupid stupid stupid shouldn’t have sent that maybe he’s mad he doesn’t love you._ Harry hated that he was getting so upset about a stupid little thing like that, but… He just couldn’t stop thinking about all the times it had already happened, and all the times it would happen again. It wasn’t Cameron’s fault, though, he was busy and Harry knew he could be annoying and overbearing and too much. It was his own fault, he knew, fragments of Cameron’s voice booming in his head from fights they had had about Harry being too sensitive: _Get over yourself, Harry, stop fucking crying. Why the fuck are you so emotional all the time? You make no sense. Man up. Shut up. You’re so dramatic. Get over it. Get over it. Get over it._

The class ended and there was another one right after, but Harry found himself packing his bag and going out in a daze. It was pouring rain. He shoved his headphones in his ears and put his hood down on his messy curls, blasting Toxic very loud, hearing injury really low on his list of priorities at the moment. He checked his phone again: still nothing. He went to put it back in his pocket with a sigh, but thought better of it. He took it out again, opened his contact list and stared at Gemma’s name for a full minute, immobile in the rain. Contemplating. His fingers hovering above the screen. Maybe, just maybe, he could… It seemed so easy, so accessible, right there. Just a touch of a finger on a screen.

Except… Except he couldn’t. He couldn’t, and he knew it. Things were too messed up to try to salvage, and he needed to stick by Cameron, anyways.

He shook his head. He needed to get a grip. His thoughts were everywhere these days, scattered all over. He needed to stop thinking about that _right now_ , before he would break. So he scrolled through his contacts again. He looked at Louis’ number for a second, and then he was pressing ‘call’ and pressing his phone to his ear before he could really think about it.

“Louis? Am I bothering you?... I was thinking, um, where are you?... Cool, uh, I was wondering, uh - do you mind if I come? I have a class that got cancelled so I… Are you sure? Oh, thank you. Yeah, I’ll – I’ll be there!”

As he pulled the directions to Louis’ apartment and started walking, he focused on the music blaring in his ears and his feet on the wet pavement, blocking the guilt and fear from what he just did (what he was doing) the best he could.

Harry knocked softly and stared at the door, his hands shoved in his pockets. He probably shouldn’t have called Louis. It was rude to impose like that. What if Louis finally realized how shitty of a person Harry really was? He considered turning around and leaving, but before he could Louis opened the door and Harry’s eyes were glued to him and there was no way he was leaving. The boy was wearing a wrinkled t-shirt, basketball shorts, one sock, and a big smile. His hair was messy, the careful fringe Harry had seen him rocking before nowhere to be seen. Anyone else in that outfit would look a mess, but not Louis. No, it just made Louis look… _Soft_. It made Harry smile a little. Louis just radiated with life, forcing all attention on him without even trying. Harry felt like one of those stupid insects flying towards streets lights, going straight to their deaths but captivated and unable to change paths.

Louis’ voice startled him out of his reverie.

“Hey Curly, changed your mind?”

He blushed.

“Hum, uh, yeah. I’m sorry to impose myself like that, I…” He drifted off, looking down.

“Don’t ever worry about it, it’s okay.” Louis was smiling at him, and he looked and sounded so honest that Harry thought that maybe it actually was.

“Come on Haz, come in!”

Harry blushed deeper at the nickname and stepped in carefully, looking around curiously.

Louis’ apartment was all misplaced things, takeaway leftovers, mismatched furniture and old worn out leather couch, kind of small, definitely messy, but as Harry looked around him, he thought it just _worked_. It smelled good ( _like Louis_ , something in him whispered, but Harry silenced it right there and then), and it looked lively and homey.

“Sorry for the mess. I would have cleaned up the place if I’d known.” Louis said, looking a bit embarrassed. He made a half-assed attempt at tidying up, pushing a few things around with his socked foot.

“Oh no, it’s okay!”, Harry rushed to reassure him.

Louis looked at him with a smile.

“You just look like someone who’d like things to be clean and at their right place.”

Harry smiled a little, looking at the floor between them.

“I-I mean, yeah. But only at my house, though. I would never judge someone if their place wasn’t as tidy as mine. That’d be mean.”

“Right.”

There was a silence, and then they both started talking at the same time:

“Thanks a lot for letting me crash-”

“I’m so sorry, you’re drenched, do you wanna-”

They both chuckled a little awkwardly.

“Um. I was saying, you’re drenched, you must be cold. D’you wanna borrow some of my clothes?”

And – okay. No. Harry was _not_ doing that. Louis must have seen something (panic) in his expression, because he added:

“Or you can just give me your coat and I’ll put it on the radiator, warm it up.”

Harry shuffled awkwardly and nodded, then slowly took it off and gave it to Louis, who put it on the heater. He was left in his wet jeans and light jumper, and yes, he was actually really cold, but Harry would rather freeze to death than get naked in Louis’ apartment.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Oh, no, I’m fine, th- Is that an electric guitar?”

Louis let out a startled laugh. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Louis smiled softly as he watched Harry trip on the carpet on his way to go look at the guitar. He was happy the boy was there, even if he looked a bit terrified.

“Hey, hey, careful there, Curly. It won’t go away, y’know.” he teased, but really, Harry’s enthusiasm was endearing.

Harry blushed ( _again_ – and if Louis overused the nicknames because he noticed it made the kid blush pretty shades of pink, it was his own damn business) and nodded, taking more careful steps towards it. He looked almost reverent as he looked at it, and Louis didn’t really get it. Because well, it was just a guitar, wasn’t it?

“You wanna try it out?”

The awestruck look Harry threw at him after that took Louis off guard. Was the kid _that_ excited about music?

“Oh, no, I don’t… I don’t play. I don’t know how to. I don’t want to like… Mess it up or something.”

Louis arched an eyebrow.

“Mess it up? You won’t. Unless you throw it or something. C’mon, you can try, it’s okay.”

Louis watched curiously as Harry stared wide-eyed at the instrument for a moment, maybe considering it, before shaking his head slowly.

“No, thank you.”

Louis raised his eyebrows but didn’t push it. His list of “Things to investigate about Harry” was getting uncomfortably long.

“Heeey, so _you’re_ the guy Louis won’t shut up about?”

Louis glared at Niall who just burst into the living room, grinning and yelling at the poor boy. One day he swore he would murder this fucking idiot. Slowly. Louis watched as the idiot in question almost ran to Harry and went to hug him. It was a very Niall thing to do, hugging a complete stranger, and _no_ , Louis was not even a little bit fond. But then Harry flinched and shrinked on himself, shying from Niall’s sudden burst of affection, and the air turned serious. And thick, so thick, almost unbreathable. Louis just watched as Niall retracted with wide eyes and offered him a hand to shake instead with an apologetic smile, and just like that things went back to normal and they could breathe again. It lasted a second, but really it could have been a year with how everything froze for a moment. Louis heard Harry exhale a shaky breath, saw his hand tremble lightly when he shook Niall’s.

They all pretended nothing happened and moved on, Niall asking Harry questions about school and rambling on about how they should watch a movie since the weather was so shit anyways, and Harry seemed to relax, but Louis _saw_. 

He was still storing the information.

“I really like Niall, Louis. He’s nice. I really enjoyed yesterday, thank you again.”

They had watched trashy TV, mostly, not being able to settle on a movie. Not that Harry was being difficult- he just watched with wide eyes while Louis and Niall fought over his head. They had eaten some ice cream. Niall and Harry talked about bands, and Louis watched Harry’s eyes light up with a smile. It was a good, lazy, comfortable afternoon, the loud sound of the rain attacking the windows just underlining the coziness of the apartment.

Louis smirked.

“First of all, you don’t need to thank me, Haz. I like hanging out with you. And secondly, really? You like that idiot? You got blinded by his sunshine-like smile like all the others. Damn it! I thought you were different, Harry!”

He put his hand on his heart, putting on a face of utter suffering. Harry just rolled his eyes at his antics and took a sip of his strawberry milkshake, looking out of the window. He was smiling, though. Louis relaxed in the booth, closed his eyes and smiled in the comfortable silence that followed.

Harry started missing more and more classes. He would leave his apartment at the good hours, but end up sitting in Louis’ café, quietly waiting for him to finish his shaft while reading or listening to some music, or in Louis’ apartment (Niall and Harry had seemed to be hitting it off, and though Louis would never admit it, he was glad), or in the park with Louis. It was uncharacteristic for him. He used to be a good student. But now things were… Different. Difficult. And Harry refused to think about the consequences it would have on his school year, because he just… Couldn’t help it. He hated his classes, and felt awful about lying to Cameron, and when he felt awful (which was most of the time), he would go to Louis. Not that he would ever say any of that to him, though. They stayed on the level surface, never talking about anything too deep or too personal, an unspoken boundary between them that seemed made of steel and concrete, with barbed wires on top.

Louis saw that barrier and let it be for now, but really, he knew it would have to fall at some point. Because let’s be honest, there was no going back now, they _were_ going to be best friends (Louis ignored the part of him that twisted uncomfortably at the term).

And when they trusted each other enough and Harry was ready, barbed wires (or an asshole-y boyfriend, for that matter) wouldn’t stop Louis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hesitate to comment, I love reading it! Have a nice day/night!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 6! I was wondering if the tags were enough or if anyone needed warnings in the notes for abuse or non con or other things before a chapter. If you do, tell me!  
> Enjoy!

Harry was on Louis and Niall’s couch, a place he found himself in more and more often. Louis wasn’t even there, he was in class. Niall was in the kitchen trying to make cookies. Harry had tried to help, but when Niall had seen his horrified expression at how much dough he was engulfing ( _handles_ of it), he had ushered him out of the room with promises to save one for him. Harry wasn’t sure enough dough would make it into the oven for that to even be possible, but he didn’t say anything and obediently left the room. So now Harry was trying to read a book for one of his classes. He kept re-reading the same sentences over and over, his mind always wandering somewhere else, the words never really reaching his brain. Not for the first time, his eyes looked up from the page and caught on the guitar in the corner of the room. He let his gaze linger on it for a few seconds, then took a big breath and forced his head back down. He needed to read that thing.

As soon as the teacher stopped talking, Louis grabbed his bag and made a beeline for the door, stepping on a few feet on the way but not stopping to apologize. He didn’t have _time_.

“Why the hurry, Tommo? Haven’t seen you run in years”, he heard someone joke from behind him. Louis rolled his eyes but slowed down and turned around to face Zayn, who was rocking a very tight leather jacket that couldn’t possibly be comfortable, his eternal black ripped jeans and red nail polish. He looked like a fucking rock star, way too cool to be studying something as quiet and lonely as English literature with the rest of them, and Louis approved.

“Harry’s alone at mine’s with Niall”, he answered simply.

He didn’t like Zayn’s answering smirk.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just happy you’re back on the dating scene, is all.”

Louis huffed.

“It’s not like that. I told you, he has a boyfriend.”

“So if he didn’t, you would date him?”

Louis turned around and started walking again.

“Not answering to that question.” Not that he needed to, anyways. Zayn was one hell of an intuitive motherfucker, and Louis knew he had his answer already. He just asked because he enjoyed making Louis _lose his fucking mind_. Zayn was always watching, always listening, always the first to notice when someone was having a rough time, always the first to offer an attentive ear, coffee and sarcastic advice. Not that he would ever admit it, but Louis was thankful for that idiot.

“Come on, don’t go all mad on me, you know I’m just teasing. But you like him, don’t you? You’re never this eager to see _me_.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I see your face every day since we were kids, Zayn.”

“Right.”

Zayn fell silent, their steps synchronizing, but when Louis glanced at him, he was still smirking. Few things in this world could rile Louis up more than that self-satisfied little smile of his.

They reached the place where their paths diverged and Louis turned back to his best friend, softening up instantly at his smile, keeping up a mild _I’m annoyed at you_ face he knew didn’t dupe him just to be difficult.

“Right. So, I’m going. See you tomorrow?”

Louis hugged Zayn goodbye, still, because he wasn’t fooling anyone: this was Zayn, and Louis couldn’t possibly hold a grudge against him even if he tried. (He never tried.)

Zayn smiled at him and walked away, muttering a “See you, lover boy!” under his breath. Louis rolled his eyes hard enough to see the back of his skull and made his way to the flat.

Louis opened the door and was met with the lovely sight of Harry sitting cross-legged on his couch in skinny jeans, yellow socks and a matching oversized sweater ( _he fucking matched his socks with his jumper_ ), his face hidden behind a mess of curls, peacefully reading a book Louis only needed to spare a glance at to classify as _deathly boring_.

Louis thought he wouldn’t mind coming home to that every day. He tucked that thought away carefully: _calm the fuck down, Tommo._

“So y’all survived without me? Must say I’m impressed.”

As he was saying it, an overwhelming scent of burning hit him and he widened his eyes.

“Spoke too fast.”

He hurried to the kitchen and was met by the significantly less lovely sight of Niall balancing a tray of black cookies on one arm, the other placed over his nose to block the smell. The room was clouded with black smoke. Harry entered the room too, eyes widening at the vision. The fire alarm chose that moment to start shrieking that awful shrilling noise, and Louis rolled his eyes for what seemed to be the hundredth time today. With a bit too much fluidity for it not to be rehearsed, Louis dragged a chair across the room, climbed on it and ripped the alarm from the ceiling, sighing in relief at the blissful silence that followed. Still standing on the chair, he glared at Niall, who looked back at him with mock contrition. Harry just looked between them with lost, wide eyes, like he was waiting for something to happen. A few seconds passed in silence before Louis burst out laughing, clenching the alarm in his hand and doubling over on his chair, Niall following suit.

“Fuck, Niall, wh-what the fuck?” he asked, voice strained with laughter.

“I g-got distracted”, Niall answered between two fits of laughter. They giggled like idiots for another minute before Louis rubbed his eyes and climbed off the chair, sniffling and breathing out. He glanced at Harry quickly and had to do a double-take, his giggling immediately subsiding. The boy looked lost, scared almost, eyes glazed over, looking frozen in place. Louis frowned and took a tentative step forward.

“Haz? You okay?”

Harry nodded slowly, trying for a smile that looked so fake it just made Louis frown harder. Louis looked at Niall, who was also watching Harry with a bit of worry on his features (and that was rare). A few seconds passed during which no one moved. And then:

“Hey Harry, let’s go relax on the couch while Niall cleans up his mess, yeah?” Louis said suddenly in a too loud, too joyous voice. He looked pointedly at Niall and lifted an eyebrow in a silent _don’t be a bitch, Niall_. Maybe he underestimated the boy, who just nodded and said, copying Louis’ tone:

“Yeah, yeah, you go and leave me alone so I can eat what can be salvaged of this”, in a clear attempt to make things not-weird. Louis flashed him a smile and gently led Harry into the living room, making him sit on the couch.

He hesitated, kneeling in front of him.

“Haz?”

Harry was okay, really, he was. The smell of burning and the noise of the alarm had just sent him back to that one time when he burnt dinner because he was listening to music and hadn’t heard the oven alarm go off, and next thing he knew clouds of black smoke were everywhere, the alarm was going off, the door was opening and he was panicking. Cameron had not been impressed, to say the least. Actually, it was one of the worst times, one Harry could never forget no matter how hard he tried to shove it in the back of his mind, to make it disappear. Cameron had _snapped_ , and Harry had never been that terrified in his life, had even peed himself, he remembered, and he also very clearly remembered thinking _this is it, I’m going to die_. The next day, for the first time, Harry thought about leaving. But then Cameron had taken care of him. Harry stayed in bed for a week, and Cameron had cancelled all his shifts, skipped all his classes, looked after him day and night, made him food, cuddled him. Harry even caught him crying. So he had stayed.

And now it was okay, really. He blinked the fuzziness away, forcing himself back in reality, _I’m at Louis’_ , _Louis’ living room, it’s okay._ He looked into Louis’ eyes and saw the worry, and immediately had the urge to make it go away. It was ugly and had no right to be there.

“I’m okay, Louis, thank you.”

“Why are you thanking me?”

Harry paused.

“I- I don’t know. I’m fine though, really, sorry, I just zoned out.”

Louis shot him a meaningful glance, one that screamed _bullshit_ and made Harry’s breath stutter.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Harry wanted to say there was nothing to talk about, but as he looked at Louis no words came out. Louis was looking at him like he _knew_ , like he wouldn’t believe that nothing was wrong. He didn’t like it. He just shook his head and Harry saw something flash in Louis’ eyes, something like frustration maybe, or anger, and it made something clench painfully in him. But it was gone in a second, and Louis looked at him gently, but still _pointedly_ , like he was analyzing, and Harry’s skin felt too tight.

“Okay. So... Do you want to watch a movie? Go get some _not burnt_ cookies maybe?”

Harry looked at him for a moment and stood up.

“No, I should go”, he forced out. He didn’t particularly want to go home, but Cameron would be there any moment, and the way Louis was looking at him was freaking him out.

“Thanks for letting me crash here”, he continued. He put his shoes on, not bothering to lace them, grabbed his jacket and was out of the door in a second, not even saying goodbye to Niall, heart hammering in his chest.

Louis stared at the door long after it closed on Harry’s back. _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._

When Harry came home, Cameron wasn’t there. He checked his phone: nothing. It was okay, really, he had probably forgotten that Cameron had somewhere to be.

He wasn’t there for dinner either, so Harry made him a plate and put it in the fridge. He went to bed at 8pm, not knowing what else to do, but laid there with his eyes wide open until Cameron came home. 11:36pm, said the red numbers on Harry’s nightstand. He didn’t ask for an explanation. Then they had sex. None of them said anything. Cameron fell asleep and Harry kept looking at the ceiling.

It was okay.

(It wasn’t.)

Harry woke up alone the next day and went straight to the bathroom. He felt strangely heavy, and also empty at the same time. He caught his sight in the mirror while brushing his teeth and averted his eyes. He turned the shower on, waiting for the water to warm up, and looked in the mirror again. His eyes wandered to the bruises forming on his hips from where Cameron had grabbed him the night before. He dug his fingers in his skin experimentally. It didn’t hurt that bad. His fingers wandered to the fading bruise on his stomach, barely-there yellow serving as a last reminder of Cameron’s latest outburst. Were the two kinds so different? Harry asked himself thoughtfully, his fingers ghosting over it lightly. Didn’t people think it was hot to have traces of the night on their body the next day? Granted, Harry didn’t really know what people liked or not. All he knew was Cameron. There was a time when Harry would have liked this, he reckoned. When he was sixteen and they were so new to each other, and Harry had never been loved, never been touched before, he reveled in that kind of things: the hickeys, the light bruising, the “mine”s whispered into his sweaty skin. He liked to feel it the next day and remember. It wasn’t that long ago, really. Now, though, Harry looked at it and all he felt was numbness. He wondered calmly, coldly, if a bruise even meant anything, if it could be caused by rage and love, hate and passion interchangeably and still look the same, feel the same. He didn’t know which one of those things caused the bruises from yesterday and it made his head swim a little, his stomach churn a little. He had a sudden urge to throw up but just tore his eyes away from his body, shook his head and stepped under the water that was just that bit of too hot. He needed to get a grip.

He skipped another class and called Louis. They went for milkshakes at the café from the first time they had hung out. Louis paid for him like he always did, and Harry wanted to argue like he did every time, but he really didn’t have the energy, so he just let him. He saw Louis looking at him curiously. Harry knew he was being really quiet, but there wasn’t much he could really do about it. Some days he just got into those moods where every movement, every word were draining, where he felt like he was trying to walk in the ocean, putting all his strength in every step and only ending up with lungs full of salty water.

Louis didn’t seem to mind, though. He did most of the talking, Harry only nodding here and there and huffing little laughs at Louis’ anecdotes from work and school. And when it seemed that Louis had exhausted his topics of conversation, they just sipped on their milkshakes in comfortable silence. Harry let the sugar infiltrate his blood, waiting for the energy to come back and for the fog to go away. It always did. In the meantime, he was glad Louis was with him.

“How about we go to the park?”

It took all his willpower to utter the words, but when Louis looked up and beamed at him, it was worth it.

“I’d love that.”

Now, because Louis was always his happy, energetic self, people tended to think he didn’t understand anxiousness, or depression, was the type of person to think that you just had to “look at the bright side”, or “see the glass half-full”. But Louis very much _wasn’t_ that (annoying) person. Not that he could pretend he understood, either – which was a good thing, he thought - but he very much could tell when something was wrong and couldn’t just be brushed away with a smile, a night out or an inspirational quote.

He had seen it with Zayn first, since they were teenagers. It scared him at first, how he didn’t understand what was going on in his best friend’s mind, how Zayn retreated in himself, how Louis didn’t entirely know him anymore. He learnt what seemed to help, and what didn’t, and that nothing was perfect, and that there was nothing he could do that would truly make it go away. No matter how much he wished there was. _Y’know, Lou, the fact that you try is already pretty dope,_ Zayn had told him once. _And that you don’t treat me like a fucking child or some sort of scared little animal that will die of a heart attack if you make a wrong move._ _You treat me like me and I like that._

So when he saw Harry, Louis recognized something was wrong. Harry was always shy and quiet and often looked scared, but _this_ was something else, it was obvious. Something that was off in his eyes maybe, or in his empty smile. So, Louis was concerned, yes – a bit sad, too - but he was prepared. (That’s what he was trying to tell himself anyways. In reality Louis didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, but hey! That wasn’t new.) It made Louis’ chest hurt with how unfair it seemed that it was always the sweetest people that got stuck with those muddy, foul feelings, and honestly, _what the fuck_. He started yelling in his mind: _First Zayn and now Harry, really? What the fuck. That’s so fucked up. What the fuck?_ He didn’t know who he was addressing it to, maybe God if there was one, maybe the universe at large: _What. The. Fuck._

A few days later, Harry mustered up enough energy to go to a class for the first time in too long, and this time he tried really hard to understand, to get a grip. He failed, but he didn’t let himself wallow in guilt, not this time. Not when he still felt that raw and fragile.

He hadn’t seen Louis since the milkshakes and the park. He couldn’t bring himself to. He didn’t know how Louis had perceived his freak out in his apartment, or his lack of vitality the next day, he didn’t know what he thought, what he saw, and it just - scared him. He was scared that Louis saw a glimpse of just how messed up he really was inside, and that he would run away, just like Harry predicted he would ever since the first day. Maybe it would be best for Louis if he did. Who was he kidding? Of course it would be. Harry would only ever bring him down. And still, because he was selfish, he didn’t want him to. So he barely answered Louis’ texts and found excuses to avoid seeing him, because avoiding his problems was a skill Harry had mastered to perfection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you like the chapter? Give me your reviews!:)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit short, but important things happen. I'm sorry this is so angsty, I was clearly feeling some kind of way. Enjoy!

Harry successfully avoided Louis until Wednesday morning. He was walking to his eight o clock class, hoodie covering his messy curls, Lana Del Rey softly singing about love and murdering people in his ears (he wished he was her, sometimes, wished he had that voice, wished he was that good, wished wished wished). Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder and he was jumping, heart plummeting wildly, quickly turning back. He sighed in relief when he saw it was Louis, but the anxiety immediately started again as he remembered the ignored texts and calls from the past week. He grimaced a bit and removed his headphones.

“Hi.” It was awkward. It was always awkward with Harry, but right now it was _really_ awkward, and really, Harry disliked himself.

“Hi, Haz.” Harry wanted to cry at that, at Louis using the sweet nickname even after Harry had straight up ghosted him without an explanation. Once again, Louis was way too good for him. Why did he avoid him, again?

Oh. Because he had made a fool of himself and was embarrassed. Right.

“I just wanted to know if you were okay.” Louis went on with a tentative smile, and, God. Harry couldn’t deal with all the niceness. Was that even a word? Whatever. He realized Louis was waiting for an answer, light blue eyes fixed on him, and cleared his throat.

“Oh. Um. Yeah, I’m fine. I’m sorry I ignored you. I was…” he trailed off. He didn’t know how to explain. But because Louis deserved an explanation, and because he was still looking at him patiently, no sign of frustration in view ( _he’s too nice_ ), he forced out:

“I was, um, embarrassed…? Because of the two last times we saw each other. I’m sorry.”

He met Louis’ eyes and simultaneously felt calmer while his heart started beating faster, which he didn’t think was possible until then, but if someone could make it happen, it would be Louis.

“You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about, Harry. I mean it, okay?”

There was a firmness in there, but a _good_ one, and Harry couldn’t do anything but nod.

“Where were you going?”

“Oh. Uh. Class.”

“Ah, those dear Economics, uh? You up for a coffee after? Tried replacing you, but Niall’s too loud and Zayn keeps sexting a guy right in front of me, blushing and all, and that’s just _rude -_ ”

Harry smiled as Louis rambled. Louis was still Louis, still ridiculous, things were normal, and Harry found that he could indeed use a coffee.

“We can go now if you want.” He said, interrupting Louis’ monologue in an uncharacteristic burst of confidence.

“And then I said… What? Really?”

Harry smiled again.

“Really.”

“But what about your class?” Louis was frowning and, right. Nobody knew Harry had basically given up on ~~life~~ his school year.

“It’s okay if I miss it. Someone will lend me notes, and everything is in the syllabus, anyways.”

The lie left a sour taste in his mouth. He didn’t know anybody that would give him their notes, anybody at all for that matter, and even if he did he would never dare to ask, and there also was no syllabus for that class. But Louis seemed to buy it so it didn’t matter.

“If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

And he was.

Things were normal for about half an hour (Louis wasn’t counting). Louis made jokes, made fun of Harry’s order, they fought about who was paying, they got to sit in their favorite booth, it was _good_.

That was until the sleeve of Harry’s sweater rose up, because Louis was suddenly met with the sight of angry, dark bruises all over the boy’s wrist and forearm, in shapes looking a bit too much like handprints, and. And. Louis felt bile rise up his throat and hot, white anger and _rage_ expand in his belly. There was no way this was from anything else than someone grabbing Harry way too hard, no way at all that this was an accident, and there wasn’t an ounce of doubt in Louis’ mind on who put that there. It wasn’t like he was surprised, but it was one thing to suspect, and an entirely different one to _see_ , and Louis - Louis wasn’t ready for that. He stared at it numbly until Harry’s hand scrambled to put the fabric back in its place, curling his fingers at the hem of it quickly. Louis distantly noticed they were shaking. He slowly looked up into Harry’s eyes. The boy looked about as panicked as Louis felt inside.

“Cameron?” he heard himself say. He didn’t even recognize his own voice; it was dark and strained with anger.

Harry looked at him with panic all over his face and kept his mouth shut.

“Is it Cameron, Harry?” He continued, forcing himself to soften his tone and keep the anger out of it, because it wasn’t directed at Harry, never Harry.

Harry shook his head _no_ quickly, but the _yes_ was everywhere: in the way he wasn’t jumping in offense to defend his boyfriend, the way he clutched his sleeves desperately like it might take back the whole ordeal, the way he couldn’t hold Louis’ gaze, his eyes shifting nervously and eventually just looking down at the table.

Louis looked at him meaningfully and nodded just once, hoping it conveyed the “I know you’re lying but I’ll never force you to tell me” that wouldn’t come out of his dry throat. They sat in silence for a while. Louis was trying a bit too hard not to cry. Maybe Harry was too. He swallowed thickly, trying to hold himself together. It wasn’t Louis’ place to be upset; last he checked, it was _Harry_ who had bruises on his skin, _Harry_ who probably had more under his clothing, _Harry_ who would have to go back to that place at the end of the day _, fuck,_ was he going to have to watch him go back there today? He felt like violently murdering the guy and sobbing himself to sleep all at once. Later, though, he could do that later (the second one, although Louis seriously considered the other one too), for the moment he needed to be calm and collected for Harry.

So he threw a tentative – dark tone completely gone - “Do you want to go in the park?” into the tense air instead, because he really didn’t know what else to do, and the park made everything better.

As soon as Harry nodded Louis was immediately standing up and leading him out the door with a soft hand on the small of his back. He felt protective, wanted to get Harry away from everyone, shield him from any prying eyes, _quickly_. He couldn’t believe someone would ever hurt someone like Harry willingly, couldn’t fucking believe it.

They were lying down in their favorite spot, what could be called _their spot_ now. The grass was wet and the silence was thick.

“It’s not how you think it is.”

Harry didn’t turn to look at Louis when he said it, and Louis didn’t either.

“Okay.”

The words were empty and they both knew it.

The silence stretched again.

“Haz?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t go away like this week again, okay?”

And what he meant was _I’ll do what you want, I’ll act like I believe you, but please don’t go away, please don’t let him isolate you completely._

“O-Okay.”

Louis reached out and took Harry’s hand in his. They held onto each other tightly, their skin the only remaining warmth in the cold weather, cold world. They didn’t acknowledge it, so it was okay. (Just like the kiss at the party.)

“Do you want to sleep at mine’s tonight?”

And what he meant was _please don’t come home to him._

Harry shook his head softly, and Louis nodded his own in acceptance, because what else could he do?

They eventually stood up, both of their backs wet, both of them not giving a fuck, heavier and colder things filling their minds.

“I should go.”

That made Louis want to scream, images of Harry being hurt flashing in his mind, bruises and fear, alarms ringing, _don’t let him go don’t let him go don’t let him go_. But he just took Harry in his arms and hugged him as tight as he could, smiled at him sadly and then watched him go away, and Louis had never felt so helpless. He waited until his retreating form had completely disappeared from his vision to let the tears fall down.

The next day, as Louis dialed Zayn’s number, sprawled out on his bed, and put the phone to his ear, listening to it ring, he felt guilt swell up in his chest. He should probably keep this to himself, he knew he should, but images of Harry’s bruised skin kept floating into his brain, and Louis couldn’t stand there and do nothing, he couldn’t. The ringing stopped and Zayn’s muttered “yeah?” forced him out of his thoughts.

“Hey Zayn!”

“Hey mate. You alright?”

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“You never call me unless you have a problem or want weed, Louis.”

Damn. That made Louis feel like a horrible person. Did he really? Now that he thought about, that technically could be considered true, but-

“And before you apologize, don’t. I already see your ugly face every week in class, I don’t need your phone calls, boo.”

Louis was mildly offended, but he just laughed good-naturedly.

“So what is it, then? I’m warning you, I don’t have any weed right n-”

“Oh, no, it’s… Well. I wanted your advice on something actually.”

“Ah. That’s never good.” Zayn said jokingly.

But Louis didn’t laugh. He was thinking about Harry, the bruises, the apologizing, the flinching.

Zayn seemed to pick up on Louis’ dark mood and instantly sobered up, the intuitive fucker.

“What is it, Lou?”

“Hum.” Now that he was there, he couldn’t really get the words out, didn’t know how to start.

“You can tell me everything, you know.”

“I know, I know. It’s just – I don’t know – humph.”

“Come on, just say it, Lou.”

“I don’t know how to explain it, okay? I just… So, there’s this guy I’ve been seeing, Harry, you know?”

That sounded wrong, like they were dating or something.

“Course I know. You never shut up about him.”

Niall always said that too. Did they conspire behind his back or something? Whatever.

“Yeah, well. I think- I think his boyfriend is abusive.”

That got Zayn silent and dead serious instantly.

“That’s… Okay. That’s serious.”

“I know. I just don’t know what to do. Should I… Should I do something? I feel like I should do something. But also, he didn’t, like, tell me. And I can’t force them to break up, can I? Should I just murder the guy?”

“Louis, shut up. You can’t just… Save him. That’s not how it works. Trust me, I know.”

Something ugly swelled in Louis’ chest at the memory of what had happened when they were freshmen with that absolute asshole that Louis would very much like to see embed into a wall. It was brief, Zayn got out pretty quick, but it was still plenty of _too much_. Sometimes Louis saw the guy on campus and it made him see red, how he was still laughing with his friends, going to classes, going on with his life unbothered, like nothing had happened.

“If it brings out bad memories we don’t have to talk about it, you know, I just thought about you first -”

“I’m okay Lou, really. I want to help. So, listen to me. Don’t do anything stupid like find his boyfriend and yell at him – shh, let me finish.”

Louis bit his lip from where he was about to protest that he wasn’t stupid. Because, keeping it real, that was actually something that Louis would do.

“I think all you can do is… Be what the other is not? Like, show him what a healthy relationship is like. And just, be there. Listen. I know that’s what made me get out, was having people that loved and supported me outside of it. Y’know? I don’t think there’s much else you can do, Lou, unless you have proof that he’s in immediate danger to go to the police. And Harry would have to testify. But even then there’s no certainty that they’d actually _do_ something about it. As fucked up as it is.”

Yes, it was fucked up, and Louis gritted his teeth until it hurt. It was Zayn’s ex, and Cameron, and thousands of others, going on about their life with good people masks on, protected by their own manipulation tactics and by the blind eye everyone turned to it, because it was ugly and nobody wanted to look at it for too long.

“I guess you’re right. Wished I could do more, but I guess – I guess you’re right. Voice of wisdom, you are. Thanks, mate.”

“No worries. And, Lou?”

“Yeah?”

“That boy is lucky to have you on his side. He’ll be fine.”

That got Louis chocked up for some reason, but Zayn had already hung up. Never liked displays of emotion, that one. He was an absolute twat, Louis thought, rolling his eyes, but also, he would die for that fucker.

When Harry got home from the park _that_ day, Cameron wasn’t home, so he let himself cry. He cried like he hadn’t for a while, big ugly sobs racking his body, about nothing in particular and everything at all. He cried for his sister, he cried for his mother, he cried for each bruise, for each touch he didn’t want, for each sentence like a punch, for his sheer shirt in the garbage, and also for every nice word, nice touch, free coffee. He cried for the kiss at the party. He cried for the boy he had been who was now six feet under and who he could hardly remember. He cried for the children he wanted, the life he wanted, that he wasn’t sure he would have. He cried for Cameron too, hard, for the man who couldn’t differentiate love from hate anymore, and for the boy he had been, too. He cried for the man Cameron could have been, the man maybe he could be, if Harry tried hard enough, if he stayed, if he waited.

And then he fell asleep.

When he woke up, it was to a smile and breakfast in bed, and a part of Harry was horrified at how quickly hope swelled up in his chest again, but it was small and quiet, barely a whisper, so Harry smiled and kissed Cameron, and that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback?  
> Have a nice day everyone!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry it's been so long, but here's chapter 8! It's very intense, I'm sorry. Also, if you're triggered by certain things, please re-read the tags. Be safe and enjoy!
> 
> (Also, my exams are coming up until June, so I'll do my best to upload but if I don't, you know why!)

Harry decided to clean the flat. It wasn’t necessarily dirty, but he craved the feeling of _clean,_ and needed to do something with his hands that was useful. He started with the living room, smiling at Cameron and keeping it quiet since the man was watching a show. He put a song on repeat in his headphones, like he often did when he was trying to focus on a task. The repetition grounded him, helped him get lost in the physical acts. It made his mind quiet. It was nice, and it was safe. Harry needed safe. He felt happy but breakable, today, like just a simple nudge could have him shattering into tiny pieces all over the floor he was mopping. He chose “Breezeblocks” by Alt-J quickly and without thinking, putting it on repeat immediately. He liked the voice and he liked the vibe, it was soothing but still energizing. He didn’t pay attention to the lyrics and just scrubbed every surface like it was his mission in life.

_She may contain the urge to run away_

_But hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks_

(He would find it funny, maybe, if he listened to the words – the irony that he chose _that_ song out of the thousands that were on his phone, how it was so upbeat to tell something so dark. But once again, he didn’t, and maybe if he did, he wouldn’t see the scariness of it, would just see a love song, because violence didn’t horrify him like it did - like it should - anymore.)

When he was finished in the living room, he went to the kitchen and did it all again, breathing in the sharp scent of the cleaning products. That too felt _safe_ for him: it was bad for the lungs but it soothed him, made things clear and white and whole.

_Germolene, disinfect the scene, my love, my love, love, love_

It was good. He felt calm. Cameron was so nice with him this morning, whispered soft things into his hair while he fed him the toast he’d made. It was nothing particular, but Harry loved it because Cameron made it, and Cameron never ever cooked, and this was him trying.

_Break down, now weep, build up breakfast_

_Now let’s eat, my love, my love, love, love_

Harry’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was probably Louis (it wasn’t like anybody besides him or Cameron ever texted him anyways). He didn’t look and continued scrubbing, going at it on autopilot.

And if he wasn’t just doing it because it made him feel good ; if he did it because he wanted to show Cameron he was thankful, and show him how useful Harry could be, and if maybe he felt like he had to give something back – so what?

_Please don't go, please don't go_

_I love you so, I love you so_

_Please break my heart..._

Harry was so lost in his work that he almost had a heart attack when warm arms circled his waist from behind and a chin came to rest on his shoulder. He jumped violently and hit Cameron’s chin in the process, turning around immediately with wide eyes, removing his headphones hurriedly.

“Sorry, sorry, fuck, you scared me, I – are you okay?”

Cameron smiled and Harry stopped his rambling. The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but Harry didn’t have time to mull it over before a hand came to rest on his cheek and he was looking into brown eyes. The softest echo of something like _not blue not Louis_ floated at the border of his consciousness for a second, but it was gone before he could put meaning on it and so he just watched Cameron’s face, patiently waiting for something to happen. He was only a little bit nervous and that was progress, right? Cameron’s only answer to his question was to kiss him, and he was okay with that. It meant Harry hadn’t caused him too much pain and it meant he wasn’t angry. He allowed himself to relax into the kiss, let Cameron deepen it, let him hoist Harry onto the counter, even as he heard something clash on the floor in the process, _will have to clean that up later_. They kept at it for a while, Harry’s hands resting limply at his sides on the counter. After a moment Cameron retracted from the kiss to whisper “I love you” against his cheek. His breath was warm on Harry’s skin and it made the little baby hairs there stand up. Harry was overtaken with a weird urge to cry, and it would just be the worst timing, really, so instead Harry wrapped his legs around Cameron’s waist and went for another kiss.

(Harry’s phone, discarded somewhere on the counter, was still playing the song into his headphones:

_Please don’t go, I’ll eat you whole_

_I love you so, I love you so, I love you so_

_Please don’t go, I’ll eat you whole_

_I love you so, I love you so_

And maybe if Harry had listened to the song, he would have seen the similarities between those I love you’s and Cameron’s. But, once again, he didn’t.)

Things escalated, Cameron left for work and Harry took a long, long shower. He only saw Louis’ text when he came out of it, skin reddened by the too hot water, and he only hesitated a little bit before answering with a simple _Sure_ to Louis’ invitation to hang out. He paused in front of his closet, wavering. There was this shirt at the back of it, out of view, one he had bought on a whim a year ago and had never worn since. Its fabric was soft, almost see-through, and it was pastel pink, and it had white little buttons in the front in the shape of tiny butterflies, and it was just _pretty_. He’d fallen in love with it the moment he set his eyes on it, got out of the store with it in a cute little paper bag ten minutes later, and then proceeded to immediately freak out right on the sidewalk, because _fuck_. It was flamboyant and _obnoxious_ and of course Cameron wouldn’t like it, and what was he thinking? Harry reached into the closet for the fabric, just touching it, and he wondered for a moment if maybe Louis would like it. The shirt kinda reminded him of the boy, in a way, comforting and just _nice_. He shook his head. Of course Louis wouldn’t like it, because it was stupid, and Harry shouldn’t like soft, delicate things as much as he did. He retracted his hand from the fabric like it had burned him and put on a plain grey t-shirt and a hoodie instead, busying himself with making lunch before he could have any more ridiculous thoughts like that one.

He went, and he saw Louis, and it was good. But there was also Niall there, and Zayn, and he didn’t know why Louis didn’t tell him first. Maybe it was no big deal to him, that there were more people, or that Harry had to meet someone new. It was to Harry, but he didn’t say anything and did his best to be a normal human being and hide the shaking of his hands. Zayn was quieter than the other two. At first Harry was intimidated; of course he was, because he was him, but also because Zayn was _Zayn_ , all mysterious looks and witty remarks. He talked to Harry gently, though, no sarcasm directed his way, so Harry quickly decided he liked him. He also made an effort to include Harry in the conversations, they all did, never leaving him out like they so easily could, and he didn’t know why they bothered but it made something he didn’t comprehend spread inside his belly.

The whole time they talked, Harry kept glancing at Zayn’s nails in amazement. They were painted a dark, shimmering blue and he was _rocking them_ , and Harry felt something like jealousy tug painfully at his heart. It hurt, because he knew he could never pull something like that off. It made Zayn look cool and like an artist; but Harry, it would make him look like a freak, he knew, just like the shirt in the back of his closet. He could see the stares, hear the laughs from there. He could imagine what Cameron would say, too: something like _are you trying to embarrass me_ or _take that off right now_.

Harry shook his head and tried to turn his attention back to the conversation. He looked up from where he was staring at Zayn’s hands, fell right into Louis’ eyes and flushed a bright red. He was watching Harry with that meaningful look Harry was starting to get used to: it was like he knew exactly what Harry was thinking, looked into Harry’s brain like it was in plain sight, like his thoughts were written in capital letters on his forehead just for those blue, blue eyes to read. It should feel uncomfortable, probably, and invasive, but instead Harry found he kinda liked it, liked the attention, liked the idea of Louis knowing every part of him without having to ask. It should worry him, he knew, but damn, Harry was going to let himself have that one. All he could do was smile weakly at Louis and turn back to the other boys, who were arguing about whether or not some TV show character was hot. He saw Louis smirk in his peripheral vision and felt himself blush again.

At some point the conversation drifted to music, and Harry clenched the glass of water in his hand until his knuckles whitened. He couldn’t help but listen hungrily to Niall’s story about starting a band with some of his classmates, and Zayn’s stories about the songs he was writing for the moment, but made a point of staying very quiet, only nodding his head and laughing at the right moments. It was dangerous territory for him, and he really didn’t want to go there today. Zayn blew all of that by looking at him directly and asking him casually:

“What about you, Harry, you like music at all?”

Harry painfully swallowed his saliva and mumbled a barely intelligible “Not really”, purposefully avoiding looking at Louis so he didn’t have to see the doubtful look he was sure he was sporting. He knew Louis hadn’t forgotten about the guitar episode.

Zayn didn’t give up though:

“Really? You listen to music though, right?”

“Oh he does, he has great taste in bands!” Niall intervened with a wide smile, and, shit.

“So what kind of music do you listen to?”

So Harry was roped into a conversation about singers and bands, the smile on Louis’ face and the easiness of it all slowly making his apprehension melt. It was okay, really. Just because he liked listening to music didn’t mean he wanted to become an artist, didn’t mean he didn’t want to work in Economics. It didn’t mean anything, really. Everyone liked music, right?

So when Zayn brought up a little concert that was taking place the next week on campus and looked at him hopefully, Harry agreed to go. He’d never known how to say no anyways. Next thing he knew, he had two more numbers in his short contact list and was out of the door with a smile engraved on his face.

He walked home and didn’t even put music on, just let himself listen to the sounds of the streets for the first time in months. He wasn’t anxious, felt like he was floating, the aftermath of warm smiles and laughter and easy conversation buzzing under his skin. For the first time in too long, he felt like everything would be alright. 

Then he got home and it all went to shit.

Harry opened the door and knew something was wrong before he even closed it behind him. Fear immediately rose up in his stomach and the instinct to flee washed over him, and just like that any lightness he might have been feeling was gone, buried six feet under. Cameron was standing in the living room, and he looked him dead in the eyes the moment he stepped a foot in the flat, pinning him in place. The air reeked of anger, and danger was radiating off of his boyfriend’s skin. It was everywhere: written with painful clarity in his eyes, all over his posture, his closed fists, his set jaw, his parted legs. The tension was thick, palpable, curling around Harry and trying to suffocate him. Cameron looked like a wild animal, and Harry felt like prey. Harry was always the prey, was always the fucking gazelle that could never get away and stumbled on its long legs when it tried to run. Stronger than the urge to flee, an overwhelming need to apologize engulfed the boy, for whatever he had done, for whatever Cameron was angry about, and he was stuttering it before he even realized, broken strings of _sorry, sorry, sorry’_ s, and _please, please, please’_ s. Cameron was on him in a second, he always seemed so fast, and Harry was recoiling and he was breaking already, pleading and whimpering and pressing against the door to try and disappear. But he didn’t, and Cameron grabbed his chin roughly, and Harry was looking at his furious face through blurred vision, and Cameron’s words got to his brain delayed:

"… With him, weren’t you, you’ve always been such a slut, have you let him fuck you?"

And Harry was sobbing and _no, no, I didn’t, I would never, please_ , he thought they were good, he thought they were doing better, it couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t. But Cameron wasn’t finished, he kept going:

"Yeah, I bet you did, uh? You’d let anyone fuck you, always begging for it with your fucking tight pants and big eyes, I bet you asked for more, uh?"

He slapped Harry and the impact made his head bang into the door, and Harry was thankful for the dizziness that overtook him. He didn’t want to be conscious for any of this, wanted to be anywhere but there, far, far away, please. Then Cameron squeezed Harry’s cheeks in his hands, kept him pressed against the wall and kissed him, shoved his tongue in Harry’s mouth, and Harry tried to turn away to escape the stale taste of whisky but Cameron’s steel grip kept him in place, and there was nowhere to go anyways. Then Cameron spat on his face and Harry was choking on his breaths, pure humiliation and _hurt_ crushing his insides, and he couldn’t focus on the words Cameron was yelling, everything blurring together in an ugly familiar string of _worthlessstupidslutfuckup_. And then Cameron was tugging Harry’s pants down and he started sobbing even harder, and he didn’t stop when Cameron got his own clothes off, and _no no Cameron please I’m sorry_ , and he couldn’t fucking _breathe,_ but Cameron didn’t stop, didn’t even look at him, his eyes were dark and unseeing and Harry knew it was no use. Suddenly Harry was being turned around and pushed against the door again and he could feel his vision start to cave in, and _thank god,_ his mind was shutting off to protect itself, _thank god, thank god, thank god_.

Long, long minutes later, when Cameron had stormed back into their room without a word and Harry had staggered to the bathroom, locked the door and let his body slid against it until he was sitting on the cold tiles, Harry realized he had never stopped crying. He wiped the tears tiredly, closed his eyes and let himself doze off. If he was lucky things would be better in the morning.

Louis received the text during his midday nap. It wasn’t exactly _for Harry_ that he’d taken the habit of not turning his phone off when he was sleeping like he used to, no; but the text proved that it was a brilliant idea on Louis’ part. He didn’t have time to congratulate himself, though, because he was freaking out and putting clothes on haphazardly as soon as he read it, almost forgetting his keys and quite literally running to the door without a word for Niall who was looking at him weirdly over his bowl of cereal. When he got to the café he was sweating and his breathing was labored (he should really do more exercise), but he couldn’t care less, could think about nothing with the way his chest was constricted in worry, nothing but _make sure Harry is okay_ running through his mind. He went straight to their usual booth, and there he was, in the yellow hoodie that Louis loved. Louis sat in front of him, trying to look less panicked than he was and probably doing a very bad job at it. Then he got a better look at Harry’s face and his breath was knocked out of him. Harry looked like shit, was the thing: his eyes were red and underlined with impressive dark circles, his hair was tangled, the beginning of a bruise was blooming on his cheek, he looked pale and exhausted and sad and _fuck_.

“Hey, Lou.”

The nickname would have made him smile in any other circumstance, but Louis found that he couldn’t quite make the muscles of his face move.

“Hey”, he forced out.

Silence. Was Harry going to ask him for help? He hoped so; prayed he did, shit, Louis would do anything, would give him anything he asked to try and make that look of sadness go away.

“So, Cameron knows I see you. He was waiting for me yesterday. He was pissed.”

And - okay. So Harry had been hit because he’d been with Louis, _because of Louis_ , _oh my god_. A feeling of dread and guilt rose up in his stomach. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, why he didn’t make sure they were more discreet, made sure Harry was safe, fuck. He didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself for that one.

“Are you – are you okay?”

It was lame, and stupid, and of course he wasn’t, but Louis didn’t know what to say. He was out of his depth, here, and the ugly feeling was still stirring in him, and, and. Fuck.

Harry smiled softly at him, and Louis’ breath was stolen again.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Lou. Don’t worry.”

His tone was comforting, calming, and it made anger rise up in Louis, because Harry was the one with a bruise on his face and he shouldn’t be the one doing the comforting, for God’s sake.

“Okay, okay, do you – does he know you’re here?”

Harry shook his head. Okay. Fuck. That was _dangerous,_ wasn’t it? It struck Louis for the first time, how risky what they were doing was, actually risky for Harry’s life, when there was a ticking bomb waiting for him at home every day.

“He’s- he’s at work. I needed to talk to you, because… I don’t think I want to stop, Louis, I -”

He stopped and blinked back tears, and Louis immediately reached out to take his hand in his and brushed his knuckles with his thumb soothingly – like instinct. Harry’s warm skin against his grounded him too and he breathed a little.

“Okay, I… I know it’s wrong, and I love him, I really do, Lou, I swear, but – I can’t… I can’t give up how I feel with you, and Niall and Zayn too, they’re – I haven’t felt so welcomed in so long, y’know? I know it’s dangerous, but it also feels safer with you, all the time.”

Louis looked at Harry with wide eyes at the end of his tirade, but the boy wouldn’t meet his eye, and Louis thought that maybe he’d said more than he wanted to. Then Harry was babbling again:

“I love him, Lou, I really do, please, I don’t want to piss him off, I just – I don’t know, please -”

He was panicking, and Louis gripped his hand harder, and when he couldn’t form sentences a minute ago, he found himself springing into action and talking in the steadiest, softest tone he’d ever heard himself muster: “It’s okay, Harry, I know you love him, I know” (he ignored the acid taste of those words on his tongue), and “You’re fine, you’re fine with me, okay? I won’t ever judge you, you know, you can say anything. It’s okay if you want to keep seeing me and the boys, it’s okay, it’s normal, you just want friends, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah”, Harry was crying now, fuck, so Louis kept talking, just kept talking and got up to sit beside Harry in his booth, to protect him from anyone who might look, but also so he could put his arm around Harry’s shoulders. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m sorry it happened to you, baby, you don’t deserve any of this, you know that, right? Come on, come on, stop crying, it’s okay, shh.”

Harry was sobbing into his chest now, and it took all of Louis’ willpower not to join him right in.

“Shh, it’s okay. You can cry, cry all you want, get it out. You’re safe here. You’re safe here. You’re okay.”

Louis didn’t even know what he was saying anymore, but he doubted it mattered. He just buried his nose in Harry’s hair and kept murmuring the words there, started petting his hair to try and soothe him.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, limbs tangled together, in a bubble of hushed words and soft touches, but it seemed like an instant and eternity at the same time. When Harry finally stopped crying, Louis bought him a vanilla milkshake and a chocolate chip cookie and just watched him eat it. He never went back to his own seat, but neither of them mentioned it. They didn’t mention the way Louis kept his arm around Harry’s shoulders protectively either. He knew they had to figure something out, knew they couldn’t keep putting Harry at risk like that, but he also couldn’t bring himself to bring the subject up. Harry had handled enough shit for the day. So he made a point of making Harry laugh, stole bites and sips from his food, grinning at the boy’s weak protests, started tickling him just to hear him giggle, made a show of paying for everything and stuck his tongue out childishly when Harry rolled his eyes at him.

Then Harry had to go home before Cameron would notice and while Louis walked home he tried really hard to convince himself he would be okay. Surely Cameron wouldn’t lash out two days in a row, right? The attempt to reassure himself was so weak Louis chuckled bitterly. _Shit._

Well, at least Harry went to Louis for comfort now. _Progress_ , Louis told himself, _that’s progress_.

Nothing he could tell himself would really make the feeling of dread and worry and anger go away, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here ya go. Thoughts?  
> I hope everyone has a lovely day! :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a longer chapter for y'all!

They didn’t talk about it. Not that Louis had forgotten about it, in fact, he couldn’t seem to fucking _stop_ thinking about it. It was all that was on his mind, always, all day, every day: when he woke up: was Harry okay? Was Cameron with him? When he ate breakfast: should he text him? Did Cameron go through Harry’s phone? When he got to work: would Harry show up? When he got in class: did Cameron force Harry to study Economics? (Because Louis had seen how Harry lit up whenever music was brought up and how quiet he went when asked about his classes, and Louis wasn’t fucking _dumb_ , okay.)

It was becoming a problem, if he was being honest. He kept getting caught up in his own head and doing stupid mistakes. A prime example of that was when he poured orange juice in his cereals yesterday instead of milk. Niall hadn’t stopped cackling until Louis threatened to throw all his “secret” food (poorly hidden under his bed) away. It was an empty threat, of course, but it made Niall scowl and flip him off, but also shut up, so. A win. But it was also affecting his work; he kept having to make customers repeat themselves, got confused with the change, even swapped two orders on accident this morning. And in class, too: he couldn’t even pretend to be paying attention, kept drawing in his margins (nothing related to Harry, of course, he wasn’t _that_ pathetic) and was very quickly falling behind. The worst thing of them all, though, was that he really, really didn’t care. There was only one thing on his list of priorities right now, and that was Harry; trying to make sure he was safe, keeping him as happy as he could, and _getting him the fuck outta there_. So, excuse Louis if school didn’t seem particularly urgent in comparison of _Harry being in danger_. Harry was the nicest person Louis had ever met, _sorry Niall and Zayn_ , and deserved the fucking world, and Louis was going to do all he could to make sure he got it in the end.

Was it embarrassing, that Louis was that smitten and consumed with a boy that loved someone else and only saw him as a friend? Sure. But was that going to stop him? Nah. If his heart was going to get wrecked and stepped on, then he’d rather it be by Harry than anyone else, really. ‘Cause he _was_ going to get heartbroken; Louis had almost made peace with that fact already, it really was inevitable. He was running towards a wall, he knew, right to the disaster, and doing it with a smile like an idiot.

It scared him how okay he was with crashing into that wall for Harry.

So Louis was an idiot, and that wasn’t new. But he was also terrified, and _that_ was new, he had an embarrassing urge to call his mom so she could tell him what to do (because moms had solutions for everything and you could never prove him wrong).

In theory, he knew they needed to have an honest conversation; Louis needed to tell him that they shouldn’t be seeing each other in secret anymore, that he was too scared of the consequences. Needed to tell him to leave Cameron, to get out quick, that he deserved better, that this wasn’t okay (he knew it wasn’t his place, knew it wasn’t that easy, but God, he needed to try at least). Tell him that he could crash at theirs for how long he wanted, anytime – the sooner possible, even.

But whenever he saw Harry that week, the words just didn’t seem to come out. They both acted like everything was fine and Louis always ended up thinking something along the lines of _Not now, he looks too happy right now_ and postponing. And so they kept pretending, and Louis had to give themselves that one: they were both killing it.

Friday came along, and with it the concert they’d talked about the week before. Harry was coming, and Louis was in equal parts ecstatic and considering cancelling everything and telling Harry to stay home. He didn’t know what he would do if Harry came to him with fresh bruises the next day, didn’t think he could handle it. He said exactly that to Zayn, who was sprawled out on Louis’ bed in his boxers eating crackers. (Don’t ask.) He looked at him weird. 

“What?”

“Lou, I thought we’d talked that through already. Him coming, it’s not your responsibility. He knows the risks he’s taking, and if he decides it’s worth it, who are you to tell him otherwise? Besides, we do _not_ tell others what to do in this house. Got it, dumbass?” He tossed a cracker at Louis, who ducked out of the way so it joined the other junk on his bedroom floor. He resisted the urge to tell Zayn that they didn’t even live together, because Zayn was, once again, infuriatingly right, and Louis could be a good sports when he wanted. (Kind of.)

“Yeah. I know. I just – It’s hard not to worry. I just keep thinking about it, and it really – like, fucks me up, y’know.”

Zayn looked at him weird again, and Louis braced himself. It was the ‘you’re not going to like what I’m gonna say but I’m saying it anyways’ look.

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

That got him breathless for a second, gaping at him with his mouth open, and then it was his turn to throw something at Zayn (an empty water bottle in this case), yelling a very immature “Shut up!”, his cheeks burning. He never even blushed; everything about this was embarrassing and horrible, and _no_ , he was not in love with Harry. Smitten, yes, protective, yes, but in love? … No.

And then they started a pillow war, giggling like teenagers, and he enjoyed just being a kid for a moment.

Harry was drunk. He was so drunk and it was _so nice –_ he felt so light, his limbs moved so freely, and things were softened at the edges, smoother. He was dancing. There was Niall, who kept refilling his drink and laughed a lot, and there was Louis, who wore a nice shirt that made Harry a little weak in the knees. Their eyes met and Louis smiled and Harry beamed. He wished he could bottle that up, or hang it on his wall, keep it forever. Music was pulsating in his body, dark and with a lot of bass, and Harry felt it in every pore and it was _good_. He giggled.

“Where’s Zayn? I like Zayn. Where is he?”

Louis smiled at him again, and it was soft, and then he talked like he would with a little kid, but Harry didn’t mind:

“He’s outside smoking. Said he needed air, remember?”

Harry didn’t answer and gulped down the rest of his drink.

“I’m going!” he announced, and then he tried to, but was stopped by something grabbing his elbow. When he looked, he saw it was Louis’ hand and giggled again.

“Hey, you’re very drunk, maybe getting high too is not the best idea?”

“Why not?” he retorted, but didn’t protest when Louis steered him away from the exit and towards the front of the room where most of the crowd was.

“You dance, Curly?” Louis had a smirk on, and it looked good on his face. This whole situation was a bit of a déjà-vu from that other party, Harry thought - except better, on all aspects. He nodded and then Louis was everywhere: his eyes on his, _blue blue_ , his hands on his shoulders, then his waist, then his hips, his chest flirting with Harry’s; invading Harry’s space and retreating, playing, a smirk still beautifully painted on. It made Harry frustrated, he wanted the warmness of Louis’ body against him, completely and _now,_ so he whined, threw his arms around his neck and pressed himself close. Louis laughed in his ear and _oh_ – was that what heaven felt like?

The band moved on to a calmer song and they started swaying gently without any rhythm, staying close. Harry nestled his head in the crook of Louis’ neck. It smelled good and it was warm, there, in that little corner of just _Louis_ , and Harry never wanted to leave. He started mouthing sloppily at Louis’ skin and felt him shiver. It made him smile lazily, made him want to make it happen again, but soon Louis was pushing away and Harry was cold. He looked up at him reproachfully. Then Louis laced their fingers together and squeezed comfortingly and just like that it was okay again.

“We go to the bar?” he asked hopefully, but Louis shook his head, so that sucked. He never wanted the weightlessness he was feeling to ever go away.

“Why don’t we collect the boys and go home, huh? Talk a bit more, play some games maybe? The concert’s about to end anyways.”

“Okay”, he said, and then things were moving fast and they were walking in the cold air with all the boys. The campus was _very_ lively for that hour of the night, Harry noticed, a whole new part of the student life that he hadn’t been aware of. Everything looked different, felt different, smelled different even: familiar places Harry had seen countless times, brand new again. People were louder too, messier. He would have hated it sober, probably, but now it was not scary, just intriguing. He vaguely heard the boys pestering Zayn about a guy he was seeing but was way too busy watching the way the city lights reflected on the wet pavement to pay attention. He was mesmerized; it was really pretty.

“Haz?”

“Huh?” He looked up and blushed when he saw everyone looking back at him expectantly. Louis put a hand on his arm and Harry stared at it owlishly.

“Would it be okay with you if Zayn invites his boyfriend over to mine? It’s totally okay if you say no.”

Harry scrunched his face up. He didn’t know why he was asking – it was _his_ place, after all, and he hadn’t asked before inviting Zayn the other day. It felt nice though, made warmth swim in his belly, that they would think to _ask_ , so he smiled and nodded.

“If y’like him then he’s prob’ly cool”, he said in the general direction of Zayn, who looked happy at that. They continued to walk, Zayn muttering “and he’s not my boyfriend, asshole” to Louis under his breath. The other boy chuckled, and it was beautiful. Harry felt on top of the world. Nothing could make this night go wrong. 

Harry thought wrong, apparently, because when the door opened later in the night to reveal Zayn’s boyfriend-non-boyfriend, his happy mood quickly crashed to the ground in an awful clutter. He was left frozen in place and shivering, all the warmth he was feeling promptly leaving his body. He watched numbly as Zayn gave the guy a hug and turned back to them with a wide smile.

“Liam, meet Louis, Niall and Harr- Harry?”

Harry tried to swallow his saliva to answer but it felt wrong, everything felt wrong, and it was like an invisible hand was trying to strangle him. His eyes were fogging up too and his chest constricting in fear, his whole body revolting against the storm raging in his mind. Why could he never have even _one_ moment, one happy moment left untainted by fear? Why did everything always have to go to shit? And why the hell had Harry even been stupid enough to put himself in this situation?

He forced a smile and a nod he hoped said _I’m fine_ and _nice to meet you again_ and watched as they all went back to talking after a short, awkward silence.

He stood back and pretended to listen, but he couldn’t even hear the words over the ugly, sticky self-hatred that was flooding his brain, staining it black. He was fucked. Liam was going to tell Cameron and it would all go wrong again, like it always did because Harry kept fucking up. It always went wrong and he was tired, tired, tired. He wondered dazedly if maybe Cameron would kill him this time and somewhere in the back of his mind a little voice went _please yes deserve it make it stop_. He was too freaked out to be concerned.

As the night went on, Harry realized none of them were buying his fake happy façade. He didn’t know if they meant their worried glances to be discrete, but, well. They really weren’t. He didn’t know how to deal, he wanted to leave but didn’t want to go home. So he drank, and drank, and drank, and it really wasn’t like him, but he just – he needed to numb himself down or he would crumble. Liam kept trying to engage him in conversations, kept looking at him like he wanted to convey something, his face so nice it hurt, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t.

At some point he locked himself in the bathroom to sob for ten minutes and came back like nothing happened. He didn’t need to look at Louis to know he wasn’t buying it, but he didn’t want to face him right now, didn’t want to face anything.

“I think I’m going to go”, he said quietly, and silence settled on the room. He had no idea where he would go, honestly, but it didn’t matter as much as getting out of there.

“You could sleep here if you want to?” Louis’ voice was tentative, quiet, and it made Harry really sad. Louis should never be doubting himself.

“I mean, you can take my bed, and I’ll take the couch. Or – or if you really want to go home I can take you. You’ve drank a lot and people are weird and it’s dark.” Louis was rambling now. Harry didn’t meet him in the eye. He wanted to protest the couch thing but he also just wanted to be alone and pass out already, and so he nodded minutely and Louis was immediately taking his hand and leading him to his room.

Under the fear and the drunkenness, a little part of Harry was happy to see Louis’ room, because he’d always entertained the idea that people’s bedrooms were like a glance inside their brains. He really had trouble focusing on anything at all but he distantly noticed that it was small, simple and messy. It smelled like Louis too. Harry liked it. Louis rummaged in his wardrobe for a bit before giving him some PJs and an extra blanket. He disappeared for a bit and Harry sat on the edge of the bed, closing his eyes. The boy came back with a tall glass of water and Harry drank it without complaint. There was an awkward pause before Louis slowly lowered himself onto the bed besides Harry.

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

And he’d rather not, truthfully, but for some reason it still came out of his mouth.

“It’s Liam”, he said, and Louis looked alarmed.

“What? Why? Did he do something to you?”

He looked angry, and it was cute, but sadly misguided, because none of this was Liam’s fault. It was Harry’s. (Of course it was.)

“No, no, no. He’s just… He’s friends with Cameron.”

His voice died down at the end, but Louis clearly understood anyways. For some reason he still looked a little angry at that though, but he didn’t add anything for a while. Then:

“Are you scared he’ll mention seeing you here?”

“Yeah.”

Louis nodded.

“What if I talked to him and made sure he doesn’t say anything?”

Harry couldn’t help but snort at that, a little bit of the tension inside of him dissolving.

“What, you’re gonna threaten him?” He was joking but a glint in Louis’ eyes told him he wasn’t.

“If I have to”, he said, slowly, looking at him very intently so Harry knew he meant it. The honesty of it took Harry off guard. It was kind of a ridiculous thing to say, but it didn’t feel like that, not at all. It was filled; a promise of something bigger, a _I’ll do what it takes to protect you_ that stole Harry’s breath right out of his lungs. He knew he couldn’t form a coherent sentence if he wanted to, so he just sniffled and rested his head on Louis’ shoulder as a silent thank you. Louis slid his arm around Harry’s shoulder and they stayed like that for a few moments, their breaths synching up. Louis broke the silence again after a while:

“So I’ll go out there, talk to Liam, come back here and update you. How does that sound, love?”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut at the term of endearment. Louis probably didn’t even notice he was doing it but it always did something for Harry, made things flutter in his stomach.

“Okay”, he breathed, and lifted his head from Louis’ shoulder.

“Okay. Make yourself comfortable, yeah?”

He nodded and Louis left the room with one last smile over his shoulder. Harry sighed, undressed and quickly put the clothes Louis had given him on (because someone walking in on him naked was the very last thing he needed right now). He wriggled under the covers, snuggling into the extra blanket Louis had given him. It was a very soft, thick white blanket and he kinda wanted to steal it. They didn’t have those in his flat.

When Louis came back in the room ten minutes later, Harry was already asleep and the sight made his heart ache. The boy was snuggling into his blanket, curls fanned out on his pillow, lips parted, and he looked so peaceful, so childlike like that, a stark contrast to all the bullshit he endured every day. Louis sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes never leaving Harry’s face. He couldn’t bring himself to wake him up; he could always report on his conversation with Liam the next morning, right? He brought a hand up and tentatively stroked his cheek. Harry’s eyelids fluttered a bit and the corner of his mouth lifted in a little sleepy smile. Louis smiled back.

“It’s gonna be okay”, he whispered, to no one in particular- didn’t know if he was saying it to Harry or trying to convince himself. He stood up to leave, hovered a little, turned back to look at him, and, _damn_. Louis was so far gone, it really wasn’t funny anymore. He bent down and placed a light kiss on Harry’s forehead before leaving the room quietly. It was teetering on the edge of dangerous territory, he knew, but nobody had to know about it.

Louis didn’t have time to tell Harry about his conversation with Liam the next morning. Zayn and him had stayed over, sharing an inflatable mattress on the living room floor, and as soon as Harry emerged from Louis’ bedroom (looking positively miserable), Liam was on him with a glass of water and big puppy eyes. From his spot in the kitchen, Louis watched warily as Liam led Harry back into his room with ushered words that looked like “Can I talk to you, please?” The guy had seemed genuinely nice the night before, had seemed to understand and even worry a little, had assured Louis that he wasn’t even that close to Cameron, but, still. Louis’ promise from yesterday still held, and he _would_ fuck this guy up if he made Harry uncomfortable in any way or put him in any kind of danger - Zayn’s boyfriend or not. Talking about Zayn, the boy entered the kitchen in boxers and his shirt from yesterday, hair uncharacteristically flattened on his head, and fixed Louis with an amused look.

“What?” he barked. He wasn’t in the mood for Zayn’s sarcasm.

“Nothing. You can stop glaring, y’know. Liam’s not gonna hurt your boy.”

“He’s not my-” Louis stopped himself and sighed. He didn’t need to defend himself, he _didn’t_. “How do you know that?”

“Cause I know Liam. He’s a big softie underneath all that muscle, trust me, Lou. You can calm down.”

And despite everything, Louis trusted Zayn’s words, because Zayn read people better than all of them combined. And if he sometimes did fall for assholes, he wouldn’t let someone he didn’t trust be alone with Harry either. Because, despite how much he liked to take the piss out of Louis, Zayn was protective of the kid, too. Louis had seen the way he treated Harry: he was softer with him than Louis had ever seen him be with anyone else, except maybe his little sisters. 

Louis had nothing to answer to that, so he just threw him a “You look a mess” as a revenge, earning a chuckle from his friend.

“So do you, mate. So do you.”

Louis pulled his tongue out at him. Then Niall appeared in the room with a shout of “Let’s make waffles!”, and that was the end of the conversation. Still, Louis kept an eye out for the door of his room just in case.

“Thanks”, Harry said weakly, because Liam was nice, even though Harry would have preferred never having this conversation. He wished they could have done the indirect agreement with Louis as the mediator instead.

“Hum. Harry? Does Cameron… Like, is he nice to you?”

Harry tried to keep his face neutral.

“Why? What did Louis tell you?”

Well. Never mind “neutral”; this was way more aggressive than he’d intended. Liam looked caught off guard too.

“Oh, uh, not much, actually. Just that it really would be better for everyone if I forgot about seeing you here. It just… Just made me wonder.”

And wasn’t that just _great_? Now Harry had to lie to more people, because he was dumb and got too drunk and let Louis go and tell Liam to keep quiet about this to Cameron. Like that wasn’t super suspicious; like he wouldn’t immediately guess something was going on. Not that anything in particular was going on, it was just how Cameron worked now and it only ever went wrong because of Harry, but they wouldn’t get that and _fuck_. Harry’s life really was one big joke, and he was sure whoever was up there was looking down at him and laughing their head off.

“Oh, yeah. He treats me right. I love him. He’s just a bit protective, you know, and I don’t want him to worry. But thanks again.” He knew his tone was flat and unconvincing, but that was the best he could do right now. His head was pounding, his stomach was churning and he really needed to get going if he wanted to be there when Cameron woke up. Liam nodded, gave him a little smile that looked fake, and Harry left the room because there really wasn’t anything else to say.

When he entered the kitchen, his senses were assaulted with the smell of fresh waffles and coffee and he immediately got engulfed into a hug. He froze a little before recognizing Louis and slowly melting into his embrace.

“Hey, Lou.”

“Hi, Curly. Sleep well? I bet you feel like death right now, you were wasted yesterday. Here, let me make you a cuppa. Tea, coffee?”

And Harry had planned to leave immediately, but he was suddenly helpless to do anything but smile at him and sit down with the rest of them. Liam appeared in the room behind him and immediately went to lay his chin on top of Zayn’s head, inhaling into his hair, grumbling something about the air mattress, making him laugh. Niall beamed at Harry and leaned over the table to stack his plate with waffles, pushing the Nutella and syrup towards him on the table.

“I know eating is the last thing you wanna do right now, but believe me, these waffles make everything better.”

And as Louis slid in the chair directly next to his, giving him his tea, the boy thought that he hadn’t felt that at home since back in Holmes Chapel with his mom and sister. So he settled in his chair and let the easy conversation and light atmosphere settle warmly in his chest.

It wasn’t that easy though, a voice in his head chanting _But what about Cameron? What about Cameron?_ and it wouldn’t shut up, reminding him that he was probably up already and looking for him, maybe already mad, and _oh my god,_ and _what about Cameron?_

Harry shuffled his chair closer to Louis and retorted _fuck Cameron_ , shoving all the bad thoughts at the back of his mind like he did so well. He didn’t think anything of it and shoved more waffle into his mouth, desperately clinging onto the banter of the boys to keep himself from drowning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give me your reviews!:) Are you still on board? Do you think it moves too slowly?  
> Have a nice day!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3 exams out of the way, 5 to go, still going strong! (Kinf of)  
> Here is a chapter for you lovely people. Enjoy!

The call was something Harry wasn’t proud of. He was starting to wither and crumble and it wasn’t okay to rely on Louis to deal with the mess; but he did it anyways, because he was hurt and the streets were dark and scary and he had nowhere else to go. He heard the panic in Louis’ voice and saw the horror on Louis’ face, and he hated himself for putting that there, hated that he couldn’t stop it.

He didn’t even try to deny what happened, it would be insulting to Louis at that point, and he was worth more. If not the entire truth, Harry at least owed him that lie-free grey space of unspoken-ness.

He let him fuss over him, tend to the bruises on his face and stomach, the cuts on his hands, let him run him a warm bath and make him tea, and the more he watched Louis take care of him the more Harry felt himself slip into a familiar dark pool of guilt, its water thick and cold and suffocating. Louis shouldn’t have to do all this, shouldn’t have to tend to injuries and worry about safety, not when he was supposed to go to parties and laugh and fuck and have the best years of his life, and certainly not for someone like Harry who didn’t give him anything in return. He didn’t know when he started crying, just knew that it happened and that he couldn’t stop it, and it made Louis worry harder and Harry hate himself harder.

“I’m sorry”, he said, and it was so weak, so pale in comparison to everything he felt inside. Somehow it seemed to make Louis even more upset and he wondered if the boy was disappointed that he couldn’t do better than that. Harry was too.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

It was hours later. They were lying on Louis’ bed, Harry in the same pajamas than the other day and Louis in a t-shirt and boxers. He was clean now, and fed, and exhausted. Louis had cute lightning that was dipping the place in a warm, soft orange glow. Harry felt better in that gentle light and with the smell of Louis surrounding him, his body relaxed and pliant. It was nice. When Louis didn’t answer he turned to his side to look at him. The other boy was already watching him and Harry fell into his eyes – easy, safe and blue blue blue. Neither of them added anything so he just watched – watched the day old scruff on Louis’ cheeks, the little freckles on his nose, the inked deer on his arm, and Louis seemed to be watching, too. Then Louis raised a hand to his cheek and he couldn’t help but press into it, desperate for the affection Louis was so quick to give and Harry deserved so little. The other boy smiled at him and his eyes crinkled and Harry watched attentively, enthralled. A few beats passed and then their bodies moved like one, converged towards one another, and their lips met. Flesh met flesh, their breaths mingled, their smells merged together, and Harry’s eyelids fluttered before closing. It was soft. Soft and slow and gentle. Almost innocent. Harry’s brain was blissfully empty, full of peaceful static, nothing but touch and smell and pleasure – no fear, no shame, no nagging voice. It stayed simple and sweet for a while – a few seconds, might as well be eternity - until Harry got bold and licked shyly at Louis’ bottom lip. Then it got filthy, wet and hot, still so good. Louis’ hand was in his hair and he liked that, he liked that a lot. They were clumsy, teeth clashing together in their rush, but it was perfect, still, especially when Louis let out a breathless laugh. Harry put his hand on Louis’ bicep and Louis lowered his to the small of Harry’s back, flirting with the hem of his pants. It would be so easy for him to slip inside – it was right there and Harry wouldn’t say a thing, would let him do whatever. He didn’t, though, and relief intertwined with disappointment in Harry’s brain in a confusing cocktail – thoughts to come back to later.

“God, you’re gonna fucking kill me one day, you know?” The words were hot on the corner of his mouth and he smiled, pulling Louis closer – instinct. Louis came easily and settled on top of him, holding himself on his elbows, looking down into Harry’s eyes and panting. He could feel the outline of the older boy’s dick against his leg, solid and warm – And that’s when the cocoon of safety cracked a little and Harry felt panic nag at the back of his mind. He breathed through it and gritted his teeth together, willing it away and fighting to keep a neutral expression, but as soon as their eyes met he knew Louis saw right through it, once again. He braced himself for anger, because he _started this_ , so it was only fair that he should deal with it too, he knew, he knew but _fuck_.

But instead Louis did something Harry didn’t expect: he rolled back to his side of the bed with a soft smile and placed a chaste kiss on his cheek, wiggling on the mattress and settling in a position where his body didn’t touch Harry’s. The boy was left lying in stunned silence, confusion clouding his brain. He could have managed anger, or frustration, or mockery – but that, that he didn’t know what to make of.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Harry shook his head, and Louis simply nodded and reached over to turn the light off.

Once the room was plunged in the dark, the bad thoughts came rushing back into Harry’s brain, finding their way back so easily, instantly, sniggering while they slammed against his skull – _you’re a cheater now, he always knew it, such a worthless little slut, you’re lucky he puts up with you_ and _leave Louis out of this mess you don’t deserve him_. He tried to breathe deep but it stuttered and got caught and was too fast, heavy pressure on his chest and shit, shit, what had he done? He felt Louis move besides him and held his breath when the other boy put his hand on Harry’s hip and pushed him onto his side. He went easily despite the confusion, _calm down, calm down_ , forced himself to stay very quiet and very still. He could feel the warmth of Louis’ body behind his, not quite touching yet, hand hovering over Harry’s stomach.

“Is it okay if we cuddle, Haz? It’s okay if you don’t want to.” Oh. He let out a shaking breath. That wasn’t what he was expecting. And yes, it was okay, yes, more than okay. He nodded minutely before realizing Louis couldn’t see him in the dark, letting out a small “Yeah” instead. “Please”, he added as an afterthought.

So Louis spooned him, putting his hand over his belly, warm and solid and grounding, and started rubbing his stomach in little circles, and Harry couldn’t help but melt into the mattress, sighing softly. Then his breath hit the back of Harry’s neck: “Go to sleep, yeah? We’ll talk in the morning, I promise.”

They didn’t talk in the morning, because Louis woke up and Harry was gone. He looked in every room, his heart sinking a bit more at every door opening to empty space, already knowing he wasn’t there but still opening the next. The place seemed cold, suddenly, too big with its five little rooms, and the lack of Harry was filling the whole apartment, heavy and stifling and oh so so sad, making Louis resent his place for the very first time. He eyed the coffee machine, eyed the clock – he should be getting ready for class, should be making himself something to eat or hopping in the shower. Instead he stared into thin air, standing dumbly in his kitchen. Harry had gone back to Cameron. Harry had gone back to Cameron after how bad it was and how much he’d cried and after…

Louis went back to bed.

Cameron knew. It was obvious and Harry couldn’t even look at him in the eyes, fuck. He couldn’t believe he’d actually cheated, actually was the person Cameron always said he was – a slut, a liar, asking for it, untrustworthy. The tension was heavy in the flat and he found himself walking on his tippy toes, folding into himself, trying to take as little space as possible. Cameron’s eyes kept following him everywhere he went and it made anxiety crawl under Harry’s skin.

They carried on like before. It was hanging in the air, how easy it’d been to fall into it, how well they’d fit, always there as a reminder. They both knew it would happen again, too, despite the pain and the guilt. The pull was strong and they were weak.

(Maybe they didn’t want to be strong on this one.)

The guitar thing had been such an obvious set up: Zayn let Harry in one day and he was met with a frustrated Niall trying to teach Louis to play, and then they’d all turned to him with suspicious coordination, Niall saying something around the lines of “Harold should try, he’d be a better student for sure”, and then that was that. Harry could be naïve, yes, but not that much – he knew Louis wanted him to play since the time he had tripped all over himself at the sight of Niall’s electric guitar. Still, he played along – to make Louis happy, because he felt guilty about the kiss and his silence afterwards (they were getting too good at the let’s-ignore-anything-ever-happened game), to shut Niall’s bitching up or because he really wanted to, one might never know. (But really, all of those.)

Harry didn’t say it, but he was thankful. The fact that they _knew_ , and that they cared enough to make that stupid little strategy up, it just… It messed him up. He didn’t know what to make of it, why they did it, why they were always so _nice_. It messed with his head and he was really, really fucking thankful.

“D’you think you’ll be a rock star, one day?” Louis asked him out of the blue from his spot on Harry’s stomach. They were sprawled out on Louis’ bedroom floor, eating out of a giant bag of Haribo candy – the cherries. Artificial and sweet and bad for the teeth: it was the best thing.

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean, rock star, guitar around the neck, ridiculous clothes and booming voice. I could see that for you, actually. Would be your biggest fan.”

Harry smiled at the image.

“Oh, really?” he teased.

“Yep. Would buy all of the EPs and everything.” He said it so matter-of-factly, and Harry snorted. It always awed him how Louis could let himself be a child sometimes, how unguarded he could get. He always felt blessed to witness it; wanted to collect all those pure little moments and make a necklace out of it. Wished he could do the same too.

“Good to know”, he said, and they fell silent.

It was nice to dream.

Harry learned how to play Scarborough Fair and he was really fucking proud. He was really fucking proud, and it was so good, so good, had been so long since he’d been proud of anything. Niall was beaming, too, and then Louis when they told him. They drank vodka in celebration, and it was disgusting and Harry spit it everywhere and they all laughed and invited Zayn and Liam over and talked and laughed all night. His cheeks hurt at the end of the night from smiling too hard.

So, things were confusing. Sometimes Harry felt the best he’d ever felt; included, and happy, and on top of the world, and other times he was falling apart, and his life and his relationship with Cameron were too, everything breaking and crumbling and turning to ashes. Sometimes it seemed like something was bound to go terribly wrong, like something was bound to break. He could only hope it wouldn’t be him.

“Who’s Niall?”

Harry paused on his way to the bedroom. He didn’t turn around.

“Who’s Zayn?”

Harry stayed very still.

“And who’s “Lou”?”

He felt his throat constrict. So Cameron had gone through his phone. Why did it hurt so much when he was absolutely not surprised? He wanted to yell at him for invading his space, for taking away the last bit of privacy he might have had, but he said nothing, keeping his mouth firmly shut.

There wasn’t one line that Cameron hadn’t crossed, now. He’d stepped everywhere he could; his body, his family, his future, now his texts. Harry wanted to scream, but he stayed quiet. He waited. He waited, and waited, and didn’t turn around because he knew if he did he would break. He felt more and more breakable as days went by and their relationship degraded before their eyes, as the tension grew and grew and the smiles thinned and thinned and the questions multiplied, too interrogation-like for comfort. He felt like he was constantly on the edge of a cliff, like a whiff of wind could send him free falling. But there was something new with the sadness and the self-hatred and the shame and the fear, now, something big and powerful and burning hot. It took him a second to identify it, and oh, _oh_ – anger. It was anger burning under his skin, sizzling and screeching to be let out. He kept it in, kept it all in, he said nothing and prayed and prayed – to who, he didn’t know – _please, please_ , and after a long, long silence, he took an experimental step towards the bedroom. All his senses were directed behind him, ready to bolt, or drop to his knees and beg, he didn’t know, but nothing happened. He breathed, took another step. Still nothing. He took the rest of them then, entered the bedroom and closed the door behind him. It wasn’t a victory, never was, and he knew this wasn’t the end of it, but still. For now he was safe, and he could breathe. He buried himself under the covers and let a few tears spill out. He didn’t know what would happen, now. Everything was shaking around him, ground shrinking from beneath his feet, and all he could do was shove his headphones in his ears to try and get a bit of sleep before Cameron came in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think? I'm moving things along, but this story seems to force me to take it slow. It's all gonna go down soon though!  
> Have a nice day/night :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it finally is! I'm so sorry it took so long. I have at least ten beginnings to this, the first part was a bitch to write. BUT it's here and I hope you like it :)

Louis’ hands were shaking.

It’d been a week.

He was just trying to make a drink for a customer but his body wouldn’t cooperate, his chest wouldn’t stop aching, his breathing wouldn’t calm down, and his hands wouldn’t stop fucking moving on their own accord.

It’d been a week.

It’d been a whole entire week and it felt like a nightmare.

A week since he’d last seen Harry, or heard from him at all: no texts, no calls, no impromptu visits to the café or the flat. So clearly Louis couldn’t function, now, because Harry just _didn’t do that_ . He would have answered, would have explained, would have _said_ something, if he was fine and this was a choice. But he didn’t, and that meant… He didn’t know what it meant, exactly, but he had a feeling it wasn’t good.

There were the terrifying scenarios that played in his head on repeat, assaulting his brain with images of Harry hurt, Harry bloody, Harry… Louis shook his head. He tried really hard but couldn’t make them stop, couldn’t stop imagining the worst, Harry’s bruised skin, quiet pleas in the night, harsh words echoing against walls, tears and blood. It was all he could think of, all the time, and how he wasn’t there to stop it.

Then there were his frantic phone calls to Zayn, tucked in the black of the night: “Zayn, Zayn, Zayn, Harry, he’s - _Zayn_ , fuck, fuck”, and “I don’t even know where he lives, Zayn, I’m so stupid, oh my god, never thought to just ask, should we call the police?”, and “I don’t wanna make it worse, I don’t know what to do, I don’t…”

Even Niall had understood something was off, making clumsy attempts at serious conversations, “What’s happening Lou?” and “Where’s Harry?”s, and when Louis didn’t react he started supporting in other ways, offering him food or trying to clean after himself more, coaxing a few smiles out of Louis throughout the course of the week. Once again, Louis would like to thank the universe for Niall.

He forced his attention back to the coffee machine: _do the drink, don’t lose the job, stop thinking_ . He tried his best to smile at the customer, who didn’t return the favor, _dick_ , took the money, ok, ok, big breaths. Just when he thought he was stable again and lifted his head to greet another customer, the air was stolen right out of his lungs again.  
He’d recognize these curls blindfolded, probably.

Harry was right there, in the flesh, thank fucking God. Louis wanted to engulf him in a hug and yell at him at the same time, _don’t ever do that again, you asshole_ . Louis could cry, and he would have, probably, if it wasn’t for the hand wrapped around Harry’s wrist, too tight, and the body pressed against his, too close, and Harry’s face contorted in an ugly mix of panic and shame. As acid made his way to Louis’ throat and they made their way to his counter, his eyes scanned the guy, _Cameron_ (he could barely even say it in his own head without gagging), who he was seeing for the first time while sober. It was a tall guy, brown hair, tanned skin, handsome, but also not because fuck him. His eyes were brown but cold, his face blank, jaw too chiseled, body too muscular (he pushes Harry with those arms, hits Harry with those hands, fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you_ ), a bunch of too much and not enough thrown together in the shape of a man. It missed substance or emotion, looked wrong when the features should have been attractive. It was unsettling, and sure, Louis couldn’t say he was exactly objective on this, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one who could notice it. (And maybe the only one who didn’t was Harry.)

They fell in line and Louis had to wrench his gaze away to focus on the next customer, giving her her things the fastest he could. The tension was suffocating and his thoughts were running wild. What the fuck were they doing there? Did Cameron even know that Louis worked here? Would he recognize him?

Their turn came around and Louis’ eyes followed Cameron’s hand as it wrapped around Harry’s shoulder, biting his tongue to keep himself from doing anything stupid, the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth. It didn’t look like the spontaneous, affectionate gesture it was supposed to; instead it looked weighted, threatening, like it was trying to make Harry smaller, take him down, make him fall. Harry’s shoulders were hunched, he looked pale, and scared, and way too young as well as way too old – like a child that’s seen too much. He looked like the boy from the B building all over again, all shaking hands, shifting eyes and shame. No Harry-in-the-park, Harry-in-the-flat, Harry-with a guitar, no Harry-in-Louis’-bed in those eyes. No sparkling eyes, too loud laughs or stupid jokes, no dimples and no chocolate chip cookies.

Louis wanted it back.

The silence grew and grew, tension growing thicker every passing second, and it took Louis an embarrassing amount of time to remember where they were and what exactly he was supposed to do. He cleared his throat.

“What can I get you?”

The words were strained and he purposefully avoided looking at Cameron while he said them (didn’t think he could look at that man in the eyes without punching him in the face), instead looking directly at Harry, noticing little things as he did – the dark circles under his eyes, the hickey on his throat, the scarf wrapped tight around his neck even though it was sunny outside.

“Two coffees. Black.”

The answer shocked Louis into looking at Cameron, _fuck you, he takes it sweet_ . The smile he was met with made his stomach flip. It was nauseatingly sweet and polite, almost too nice, but a vicious glint in his eyes contradicted it and made Louis’ skin crawl. It almost looked like he was enjoying himself, like this got him off. At least now it was clear that none of this was an accident; Cameron knew he was there, came _because_ he was there. He was playing a sick game only him could enjoy, either to punish Harry or to taunt Louis, or to warn them both, maybe – showing his power off and marking his territory. The hand that fell to Harry’s hip and squeezed and the way Cameron looked right into Louis’ eyes while doing it were really the only proof needed to confirm that theory.

Louis felt his face heating up at the thought and his hands curling into fists at his sides. He stared at Cameron’s too perfect face. Who the hell was this guy to come into Louis’ space and taunt him like this, who the hell was he to lay his hands on Harry and who the hell was he to look so smug about it? Was he not ashamed, was he happy about the bruised skin and the cries? This was all a nightmare, a fucking nightmare, a part of humanity that Louis never ever wanted to see. And then there was Harry, stuck in all that darkness when he’d done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Everything was wrong and Louis was getting worked up, now, was seeing red, vision blurring around the edges, losing control, his brain chanting _Cameron’s fault Cameron’s fault make him pay_ . He opened his mouth, ready to growl and spit and even yell, maybe, _get the hell off Harry,_ and _you don’t own him, he’s not a fucking toy_ , and _stop fucking smiling, you psychopath._ He wanted to wipe the smile right off his face, make him fall, make him hurt…

His eyes met Harry’s and he deflated. He gazed into the exhaustion, the sadness, the hopelessness and the fear and he gritted his teeth together so he wouldn’t do something stupid. There was a plea in his eyes, something that said _don’t make it worse_ , and fuck – Louis had already fucked up enough, already put Harry through enough shit, he would be damned if one more of his actions resulted in Harry getting hurt. And so he took a big breath of air, sent one last glare Cameron’s direction and forced himself to turn around and make their drinks. Turning his back to them killed him inside, the urge to keep an eye on Harry, to make sure Cameron wasn’t doing anything to him filling him whole and almost making him choke.

The thought that he wasn’t there to watch when they were at home made him stop in his tracks for a good three seconds, trying to regulate his breathing, before he could trust himself with the coffee machine again.

Cameron paid ( _keep the change_ , he said, and never had Louis ever have such an urgent need to slap someone) and they left with their drinks, Cameron’s hand heavy on Harry’s hip and Harry sending him a look that looked _apologetic_ , of all things.

Louis ran to the bathroom and retched.

Harry didn’t really know what was happening. He’d been almost ready to tell Cameron off, to fight back, to ask him to listen, to stop, but then… He didn’t know. Then it just hurt.

The way back home from the café passed in a daze. The world was really foggy, and so was Harry’s brain. He felt inappropriate, his skin too tight, oversensitive. Every touch hurt, even the sun on his skin made him want to cry. He didn’t cry. In fact he did nothing, going where Cameron guided him but his mind completely shut off. He didn’t hear anything besides his heart pounding against his temples.

“Lou?”

“ _What_ , Niall?”

Louis didn’t mean to be this harsh, but he just… He couldn’t deal, right now, he needed to sleep for two days straight.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

Louis sighed. He knew it wasn’t fair to keep Niall in the dark, not when he was the one who had to endure Louis’ unpredictable mood swings and random fits of crying, but he didn’t want to go behind Harry’s back and tell his story for him. It wasn’t his place. He’d only told Zayn because he thought he could help. But Niall looked worried, and the expression didn’t belong on his friend’s face. Niall was only supposed to be either happy or hungry; the concern and the seriousness made Louis feel uncomfortable, and yes, okay – a little bit guilty. He sighed and gestured to the kitchen.

“I’ll make hot chocolate?”

It was a peace offering, and Niall took it as it was, nodding good-naturedly and going to sit on the table, swinging his legs childishly. Louis smiled. He really didn’t deserve his roommate, especially since he knew he’d been a nightmare to be around these last days. He took the milk from the fridge and got to work while Niall dramatically laid down on the table, arms opened wide.

“You know, if you weren’t such a stubborn bitch, we could have done this days ago.”

“Shut up.”

A comfortable silence settled between them. When Louis was done he unceremoniously pushed Niall off the table and onto his feet. They sat in front of each other and Louis pushed one of the cups in front of Niall, who immediately grabbed it and took a huge sip before spitting it out and cursing. Louis burst out laughing.

“Don’t fuckin’ laugh, you asshole, I can’t feel my tongue!”

The banter was reassuring: at least one thing wouldn’t change, one thing was stable and safe. Louis settled into it and instantly felt better, and he realized how stupid it was to keep Niall away in the first place, to think he could do this without his best friend.

But then they had to talk about the serious stuff, which neither of them were really good at. Louis decided to just go for it:

“Okay. So, the reason I was weird this week is because of Harry.”

It was as good a start as any, but Niall snorted.

“’Course it was.”

Louis frowned. What did he even mean by that? Whatever.

“Hum. I was worried because he didn’t answer any of my texts and he just, like – disappeared.”

“Yeah, missed him and his boring textbooks in the living room.”

That made Louis smile big. For some reason it made him really happy that all the boys had adopted Harry and that they all loved him as much as he did. Well… Maybe not as much. Hopefully, not as much.

Louis didn’t know how far to go. This explanation could probably do if he wanted to stop there, but it was missing the most important part, the part that would make sense of Louis’ freak out. He also found that now that he’d started, he kinda wanted to say everything, to shed himself of that darkness so Niall could carry it with him. It was a bit selfish, and Louis never cared about being selfish before, always thought you had to be sometimes, but this was _Harry_. Louis wanted to put Harry first, always, would be so happy to stand in the shadows so Harry could have all the space and the light in the world, would drop everything in a heartbeat to make Harry safe and happy. It should be scary but it wasn’t, not really. It was almost an evidence, a “duh” moment: of course he would do anything for Harry.

But Louis had never been good with dealing with things on his own, and it was really weird to beat around the bush and white lie and hide and conceal. He hated it.

Niall saved him the stress of the decision: “It’s about the bruises, right?”

That punched Louis in the gut and he was stunned for a couple seconds. Then:

“You… You saw that?”

“I don’t know how I would have done to miss it. I’m sorry to say that but he’s not that good at the whole hiding it with makeup thing, and the long sleeves and scarfs inside are also not very hard to figure out. Also, the fire alarm freak out, the fact that he sometimes comes here at 2am and the first aid kit lying at random places of the flat... I know you think I’m stupid, Lou, but I still have eyes and a brain.”

Well, shit. Louis thought Niall was too distracted and optimistic to notice that sort of things. Well.

“So, boyfriend, girlfriend, family, pimp?”

Lou choked at the last one and sent a glare Niall’s way.

“What? Why’d you look all outrageous? It’d be okay. It’s not, like, a shameful thing. Just thought it was a possibility, is all.”

It was a very social-studies-dude kind of move, and Louis usually loved it when Niall came like a bulldozer right into his beliefs and destroyed everything mercilessly, but now really wasn’t the time. They could discuss the stigma about prostitution another time, and Niall could rock his world and make him see how much of what he thought was rooted in societal programming or some other shit, but right now this particular issue was very low on Louis’ list of priorities.

“Niall, I don’t… He’s not a prostitute, no.”

Niall immediately took the cue and let it drop: “Ok, so which one is it then?”

And for the second time in ten minutes, it hit Louis that maybe he’d cruelly underestimated the Irish guy and his social skills. Louis always knew he was good with people, but he’d never realized he was also good at the more subtle, invisible skills, never realized Niall could read people and assess situations quickly and in silence. Probably because Niall usually chose to be a loud, not-subtle-at-all motherfucker.

Louis didn’t really have the choice to mutter “boyfriend” through his teeth, eyes fixed on the table like its wood held the meaning of life.

“Okay.” Niall’s voice was quieter and held a bit of sadness. “That sucks. Thank you for telling me.”

They talked for a long time, then. Louis explained the day’s events, and Niall agreed that it was “so fucked up, mate”. But even with his new-found abilities, he still had no idea what Louis should do either, so that was fun. Louis had never been this painfully aware that they were still just students, and that none of them knew what they were doing at all, and that faced with such a situation, such a _real-life thing_ , there were all pretty useless. And it really sucked because Louis knew he should be doing absolutely everything in his power to make sure nothing happened to Harry. He wished he could be the hero in the movie, the good guy that always knew what to do and made things better, but he just… He didn’t know how to, didn’t know where to start, didn’t know what would be good and what would put Harry’s life at risk, and fuck, the stakes were so high it was petrifying.

And then that was that. Now Niall knew, and Louis really, really hoped Harry wouldn’t hate him for it.

Louis did what he’d wanted to do from the beginning and called his mom. He stayed very vague on the circumstances and made sure never to say Harry’s name, but guilt and anxiety still had a party inside his stomach for the duration of the whole call. Still, he couldn’t stay silent now, couldn’t stay immobile, he had to _do something_ before he regretted it his whole life.

Jay sounded concerned and turned into full mom-mode immediately, and Louis usually hated it when she got like that, but now it was comforting. She was on his side, she would know what to do. Hopefully.

“Listen, honey, I’m going to ask Carol, okay? She is more competent than me in this field. For now you can try to find out where your friend lives, but don’t go there, okay? You stay safe. I’ll call you back when I know more. And don’t forget to take care of yourself too, okay? I know how you can get when you want to protect someone. Everything’s gonna turn out okay, honey. You’ll see.”

Louis would never admit it out loud, but he almost cried at his mother’s soothing words. He’d never been more grateful for her.

And now he had a mission, a task to focus on: find Harry’s address. His head was clearer than it’d been for the whole week, the anxiety slowly retreating and leaving his body, letting him breath a bit. Find Harry’s address. Okay. Louis could do that.

It hurt. It just… Harry watched as Cameron wrenched drawers open and threw things on the floor, “I’m sure there’s something you’re hiding in there. Just wait ‘til I find it.” He could only stand and watch as Cameron made a mess and wrecked everything and his hands were shaking with the need to pick things up and fold and reorganize and make things tidy again, tidy and clean and safe and good, God, please, Harry just wanted things to be _good_ . Why could nothing ever be _good_? He bit his lip to keep himself for crying, it would only make things worse, would make Cameron more mad than he already was, and fuck, Harry didn’t need that. He just needed to stand there and pray Cameron didn’t find anything too incriminating.

It started with Harry’s softest jumper, oversized and pastel pink. His hand closed on it and then he was waving it in Harry’s face, stepping inside his space, and it took all of Harry’s willpower not to take a step back. Cameron’s face was red and wrinkled by rage and he looked way older than he was and each word coming from his mouth was like a slap in the face.

“What’s this, huh? Why do you have to like this shit? It’s weird. It’s freaky, Harry. And then you wonder why you have no friends? Why I try to keep you away from people, to keep you safe? Because they would laugh at you, Harry! They would all just laugh at you. I mean, look at you! Nobody would want to hang out with you, Harry, and that barista guy? He probably just wants a good fuck, knows how easy you are, would dump you right the second he came.”

The tears were flowing freely, now, as Harry took in every word. He flinched when Cameron threw the jumper on the ground and stepped on it on his way to the desk. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t want it anymore.

He found the music sheets next.

“Ah! Yeah. Should have known you wouldn’t drop that shit so easily. What, do you think you’re gonna have success? Be good at it? Answer me when I talk to you, Harry!”

But Harry couldn’t form any words, couldn’t even see through his tears. Thankfully Cameron didn’t seem to notice, already moving on, “You know what I do with that, Harry? This.”

He tore the sheets in two and Harry sobbed. It was Niall who’d printed this for him, annotated it for him. He’d even drew a little smiley face on it when Harry had been able to play it whole the first time. Now it was reduced to small bits of paper flying around as Cameron tore it again, and again, and again, until nothing remained, until it was just a puddle of trash that Harry would have to clean up later, the memory of that evening, the lightheartedness, the pleasure to play, Louis’ proud words, wiped clean. Just trash on the floor.

The evening continued that way, Cameron finding and throwing things to the ground, yelling at him, and he didn’t know what to do but take it.

But then the worst happened, and Cameron found the one thing Harry prayed no one would ever find. It was hidden behind stacks of school work, deep in the desk’s stocking place. His hand closed on it and Harry immediately wanted to melt into the ground and disappear.

“What is that, Harry?”

He only sniffled in response as Cameron studied the pile of cups in his hand. “Ari”, the visible one said. He took that one out, letting it fall to the ground, and Harry had to pinch himself not to drop down and pick it up. Cameron examined them all, reading the names out loud, “Henry”, “Hairy”, “Harri”, and shame swallowed the boy whole. And then he got to the _one_ and Harry held his breath. He followed Cameron’s eyes as they took in the phone number scribbled in black marker, the little “Louis:)”, and. And. Well. He might have expected it, but the slap still took his breath away and made him sway on his feet. Then Cameron left the room and Harry stayed frozen in place, not daring to move a single muscle, his ears buzzing. He came back a few seconds later with a broom and the vacuum cleaner.

“Clean that up” was the only thing he said before he threw them into the room and slammed the door closed.

Harry slid to the floor and sat in the middle of his broken things, hugging his knees to his chest, taking in the mess with foggy eyes.

The next morning, Louis was on his way to the campus administration building, planning on using his charms to get Harry’s information, when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He wanted to ignore it, _not the time_ , but took it out of his pocket out of habit. And then there it was, Harry’s name shining back at him, and Louis almost tripped in the middle of the crosswalk. He made it to the sidewalk and opened it with shaky fingers.

“ _Hey Lou, sry I know didnt text in a while but can you pleas come? Im sorry”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, thoughts?  
> Have a nice day everyone!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, here is chapter 12! It's very heavy, but I can proudly say that from now on we will (finally) focus less on the hurt, and more on the comfort.  
> Thank you so much for reading and bearing with my random schedule <3  
> (Also I made a music playlist on youtube for me to write this fic, I made it for myself but if you want to have a listen feel free, the name is the same as the fic. That's 2 hours of sad, weird music for you)

Harry stared at the empty coffee cups, self-hatred seeping into every pore, every crack, finding its way between his teeth, filling his lungs, closing his throat. He was so _pathetic._ He’d known how stupid it was from the beginning but he hadn’t been able to stop, the need to keep something from Louis was heavy and insistent and henever stood a chance. He needed something to remember blue eyes, kind words and sugar rushes, needed a reminder that it’d existed for when Louis would he gone. Because he would be, at some point, like every other good thing eventually was. It was one of the only things Harry was certain of, these days.

He’d thought he could keep it hidden in the dark, buried deep in his desk forever, only existing for himself – which is to say: almost not existing at all. But now it was right there, exposed and scattered in the harsh bedroom light – his insecurity, his fear of loss, his need to hold on to any bit of human affection he could get his hands on, and, even worse, the small, small piece of hope he’d kept carefully folded, tucked away into the stained cardboard - right there, exposed for anyone to see.

It was ugly. He looked away.

Images were moving on the TV but all Harry’s brain registered was a mush of indistinct colors and sounds swirling together. His body was tight, muscles tense. He was staring straight ahead but all his attention was focused on Cameron’s hand rubbing his shoulder, sometimes moving to cup the back of his neck. He’d always done that, but the cute, protective gesture had slowly turned into something that made hairs all over Harry’s body rise up and things inside of him break and fall. An easy slide into darkness. Harry smothered a nervous laugh as he thought the words; that sounded like it could be the title to his life movie, if for some obscure reason someone was one day stupid enough to make one. They were cuddling, and it was so… _S_ _tupid_ that Harry would have given anything for that to happen only a few weeks ago, but now he was just... Sitting there, and everything was blank. And cold.He felt six feet away from his own body, and even further away from the other man on the couch. His boyfriend of two years, the one he lived with, depended on, the only permanent fixture in his life, and still, right there, in their shared living room,on the couch they’d chosen together, with their bodies sharing heat through thin clothes, he’d never felt more estranged from someone.

As the colors swirled and swirled before his eyes, as Cameron’s hand explored his skin and all Harry could bring himself to feel was exhaustion, he felt the garden, the kid and the dog, the wedding, the smiles and the breakfasts in the sun slowly slipping out and away. They turned into a puddle that gathered at his feet, muddy and gray, quickly replaced with study books, boring jobs, mean words, mean hands. Blood rising to the skin in purple paintings. Concealer and bandages. Cooking for Cameron and cleaning for Cameron and sleeping with Cameron even when it hurt.

 _That_ was his future, and so here the dreams went: in the gutter with all the rest.

It didn’t explode until later in the evening. Harry wasn’t surprised. He knew it was coming, knew all that happened today couldn’t be the end of it, not after what Harry’d done. So he took it well when Cameron drank too much wine at dinner and barely touched the dish he had taken two hours to make. He took it well when Cameron’s words became slurred, when he became louder and scarier, his frame seeming to fill in, shadow crawling on the wall and surrounding Harry from every angle. He took the first punch well too. Same thing for the bottle of wine aimed at him, he ducked out of the way at the very last moment, and really, this wasn’t new. He knew the tune, knew the moves. It was a bad, bad choreography, one that should never be shown on stage but that they’d repeated over and over again, until it was forever embedded in both their bodies. It could end a few different ways, always the same ones: number one, with Cameron storming out and Harry being left alone for a few hours, usually just enough time to clean himself up and deal with the mess; number two, with Harry leaving the flat and going to any open public place he could find (although these days he tended to desert the parks, cafés and libraries in favor of Louis’ apartment); possibility number three ended with Harry’s body trapped under Cameron’s sweaty one on some surface or another. He preferred not to think about possibility number three.

As he crawled away from the dark red stain on the white tiles ( _dirty dirty dirty gotta clean it as soon as I can_ ), Harry wondered which way their ugly little dance would end, tonight.

But things didn’t turn out as expected, because, who knew? Even the bad choreographies could go wrong.

_Crack._

Harry cringed at the sound. The _cracking_ sound, coming from _his body_. The pain only registered a few seconds later, but fuck did it hit, exploding in his brain, raw and white hot and flipping him inside out. It stole the air right out of his lungs, made all colors dull and slip out, the sounds around him closing up on him and fading, fading, fading. For one, two, three long, terrifying seconds, Harry couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. And then, slowly, the darkness tore up and dissolved, only to be replaced by a blurry view of white kitchen tiles stained red. Just as he was going to take a big breath, a shoe came and kicked him again, in the exact same spot, leather meeting cotton and crushing skin and Harry would have screamed if only he could _breathe_. He pressed his forehead to the floor, hot tears spilling freely and getting everywhere, gasping, searching for oxygen desperately. He finally found it, shakily inhaled but then he choked and coughed and _shit_ , that _hurt_ , Harry didn’t think anything had ever hurt this much before, and it wasn’t the first time his battered body was splayed out like this on the cold kitchen floor.

“Get up.”

Cameron’s voice was only a whisper compared to the clatter of his own howling mind, but his brain still registered the information somehow, registered the dark tone over the clamor of his body screaming bloody murder, danger signals traveling from his brain directly to his arms, muscles straining to obey, to lift himself up. He fell back on the ground with a pathetic _thump_ and Cameron’s answering laugh didn’t have the smallest bit of amusement in it. Then Harry was being lift up by his hair and he went limp, his body giving up completely, mind in a haze.

“Don’t you cry. Don’t you fucking _cry_ when _you_ cheated on _me_ with that cheap ass twink bartender.”

A small flicker of indignation lit up somewhere inside Harry at the cruel words, something faint and distant that said _don’t insult Louis, insult me if you want but_ _not Louis,_ _never Louis_. He didn’t act on it, though, was way too busy trying to breathe, trying to see, and trying not to pass out to do anything else. Cameron finally released him and he fell back on the floor with a yelp as his face hit the hard surface. He didn’t bother lifting it from there.

Typically, this was the moment when Cameron would stop and storm out of the apartment or to another room: Harry was out. His body and mind were both on the floor, at Cameron’s feet, and he wouldn’t be standing up anytime soon. Correctly battered down, all the fight drained right out of him. This would have been enough any other time.

Not this time.

He squatted down, lowered his face to Harry’s, and softly wrapped his hand around the back of the boy’s head. His breath hit Harry’s skin with every word as he started to talk very quietly into his ear.

Harry could do nothing but listen to soft spoken words sharpened like swords. They went from Cameron’s lips straight into his brain, invading it, clogging it and making him suffocate. He started to sob, _hard_ , with his face still pressed against the floor, and every movement made his side radiate pain into his whole body and his chest heave, but he couldn’t stop. He wanted to say _sorry_ , was just so fucking _sorry_ , for everything, sorry for the kisses, sorry for the lies, sorry for the cups, sorry for existing. Sorry sorry sorry. But he couldn’t say it, nothing could come out of him but sobs and snot and whimpers. Blood, too. He could see it spreading on the white flooring, a bitter mirror of the wine from earlier, stupid red sticky liquids that stained everything. It was from his nose, he thought, which was good, better than if it was from his head.

After an indefinite amount of time, Cameron stood back up and Harry suppressed a sigh of relief, trapping it between his teeth. Stay quiet, don’t mess it up. He kept his head low and heard heavy steps going away, heard the door to the bathroom open and close. He closed his eyes tight as a few stray tears squeezed through. It was over. It was over.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t and it really, really scared Harry, because normally when Cameron went away he came back calmer and it was over. It was how it worked, how it’d always worked, but the steps coming back from the bathroom were anything but calmer, they were heavy and accompanied with breathing just as heavy, and Harry just knew. He took a few big breaths while he still could, trying not to think about what this all meant, about how he would make it through with the pain still making him lightheaded. _Don’t think,_ _just_ _focus on_ _surviv_ _ing right now_ _._

He braced himself for more kicks, more yells, but none came. Instead all he heard was a big crashing sound. He slowly tried lifting his head from the ground, and when he did, he didn’t know what to make of what he saw through his blurry eyes. Cameron had opened the cabinets and was throwing things in another sour reminder of earlier, when it was Harry’s precious things ending up on the floor. His face was contorted, eyes wild, and he looked like a trapped animal, disheveled and feral as his big hands grabbed and threw and destroyed. Harry watched, transfixed, something preventing him from looking away even though the vision was disturbing, eyes glued to his boyfriend as fury consumed him and he seemed to lose all and every bit of control. He’d never seen that kind of directionless anger in him; usually all that rage was directed towards Harry, but right now Cameron looked like he wanted to destroy _everything_ and something about that was somehow even more fucking terrifying.

It took Cameron shoving a cupboard on the ground and it landing right next to his leg in a loud bang for Harry to break out from his trance. He yanked his eyes away from Cameron and started crawling towards the other side of the room, trying his best not to put any strain on his side, grimacing at each movement and praying Cameron would be too absorbed in his… In whatever this was to see him slide out of the room. He just needed to get away. He had a very bad feeling about this.

But of course, Harry had no such luck. The universe obviously hated him, and it seemed to have been decided that today absolutely everything that could go wrong, would. And so he’d only started his crawling for a few seconds, was only halfway through the room when Cameron’s head snapped back and his eyes instantly found his, liquid burning black against hazy green, pinning him in place. Harry felt like a stumbling gazelle in front of the lion again, or like one of those poor dead insects trapped inside of glass. With a little label under it, helpless and exposed, wings pinned open wide. Then Cameron was right there again, and he didn’t know why he kept getting surprised, really, Cameron always seemed to be everywhere all at once. Maybe Harry was just slow. His body was dragged across the room and he was shoved against the counter and another burst of pain made him grip it too tightly, eyes focused on his whitened knuckles.

He looked up and his heart stopped.

It was like it happened in slow motion: Harry saw the exact moment Cameron’s eye caught the knife on the counter and in a fraction of a second adrenaline was surging from his brain into his whole body and he was _bolting_ , battered limbs bursting into life in a sudden spurt of unexpected energy, his muscles fueling on pure terror and making him go faster than he’d ever been. He was out of the kitchen and into the bathroom in an instant, a show of survival instinct he never knew he had. He slammed the door shut and immediately felt it come back towards him, _no_ _no no_ _no,_ so he threw his whole body onto it until it slammed back, turning the key twice with shaking hands before falling backwards onto the floor, the key falling with him in a clatter. He watched with bleary eyes as the door rattled and shook and bent, his heart hammering in his chest like it was trying to get out, Cameron’s voice so loud he had to take his hands to his ears to try and conceal it, but still, _come back here right now_ and _open the fucking door, Harry, I won’t say it twice_ and _you’ll have to come out at some point and I’ll be right there._ He looked around him frantically until his eyes fell on the shower curtain. He crawled over to the shower and then crawled inside, curling up on the wet floor. The noise was a bit muffled, there. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Harry stayed in the shower.

Harry stayed in the shower through Cameron pounding on it and screaming all evening.

Harry stayed in the shower when the night came and he was left alone in complete dark and silence.

Harry stayed in the shower in the morning, when Cameron pounded on it again, stayed through the guilt of blocking him from any morning routine even though he knew he had to go to work that day.

Harry stayed in the shower when Cameron left.

All the while he could feel his phone in his jeans pocket, see the outline of it, feel its slight weight against his thigh.

He closed his eyes tight. He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t.

He took it out with trembling fingers. The battery was almost dead. He opened his list of conversations and stared at it. There were only two of them: one with Cameron, one with Louis. He clicked on the latter but shook his head and locked his screen. He couldn’t.

He put his head on the tiles. He was cold. And he was hurting. He curiously lifted his t-shirt to peer at his side and tears gathered in his eyes. There was a huge purple bruise there, with accents of green and black. He looked at his hands, that were covered in dried blood from his nose and closed his eyes again, scrunching his face up to stop the sob from escaping. He was okay. He needed to be strong, needed to get back together, couldn’t fall apart so easily. This wasn’t that different from other times, so why did he feel like this was the absolute worst? Everything was slipping into darkness and inside his belly was a vulnerability that wouldn’t go away. He felt like a child. He started thinking about his mum and Gemma and this time he couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down his cheeks, to his ears and his mouth.

The tears stopped and dried and he stayed as he was, curled up next to shampoo bottles, shivering, all notion of time completely gone.

He opened his phone again and looked at Louis’ name. He thought about Cameron coming back at the end of his shift, looked back at Louis’ name. Maybe he could… Maybe one last time. One last night, so the fear could calm a little and he could get strong again, one last inconvenience and then he would stop bothering them, would get back to his life and leave Louis’ untainted. One last night.

So he opened the conversation and started typing, trying to get his shaky fingers and shakier mind to work together to try and write something that made at least a little bit of sense.

“ _Hey Lou, sry I know didnt text in a while but can you pleas come? Im sorry”_ was the very best he could do. It sounded wrong, but then everything did. The answer was almost immediate:

“ _Course, what’s your address?”_

Harry painfully typed in his address, and then: _“Be there in 20, ok?”_

Harry closed his eyes and let the relief wash over him. _“Okay”._

Now he just had to find a way to get up and out of there.

Louis took a sharp turn and cursed under his breath. He needed to calm down if he didn’t want to crash Niall’s car, so gracefully lent ( _I need your keys right the fuck_ now, _Niall!_ ) by the Irish lad. He said twenty but achieved to run back to the flat, snatch the keys, run back out and make the short car trip in less than ten, which, okay – Louis _could_ get off his ass when he really wanted to. He allowed himself a two second break to find his breath back before he got out of the vehicle, not bothering to lock it behind him. He looked at the building with squinted eyes, stopping himself just short of snarling at it. He looked at the entrance. Should he ring? He didn’t know, had no idea if Harry was even alone or not, what state he was in, nothing. He opted for texting, nervously tapping his foot on the concrete floor in the two minutes it took Harry to reply to his _There xx_ with a _coming._ He waited some more, switching to biting his nails. A lady walked past him and shot him a confused look. Louis didn’t blame her; he probably looked right psycho, standing alone a few feet away from the apartment building and staring at the door at full alert. It didn’t matter. He just really needed to see Harry, _without_ the barbarian’s hands all over him.

Harry opened the door and looked at the messed up kitchen. There was furniture laying broken on the floor along with pans, cutlery, packets of rice, a bottle of oil and more random things. There were a total of three red stains on the floor: one made of wine, one made of blood, and one made of tomato sauce, with its shattered jar still in the middle of it. He didn’t have the time to clean, no matter how much the vision made his fingers itch and an icky feeling crawl up on him. That meant Cameron would come home to a messy house, which meant Cameron would be absolutely pissed off when Harry eventually had to come back, and if Harry wasn’t already at the maximum level of anxiety a body could take, the thought would send a jolt of fear down his spine. Now he just looked and breathed deeply through his nose to try and make the dread go down, down, down, bury it as deep as it would go. He needed to focus on one thing at a time. Thing number one was make a bag. Making a bag was something he could do, even if it hurt when he stood and walked (and, honestly, even breathed.)

 _Just one night_ , he reminded himself as he grabbed a duffle bag and stuffed it with his toothbrush, his charger, a t shirt and boxers. He passed the bookcase (that only he used – _I just don’t get what the point of reading is, Harry_ _._ ) and grabbed his favorite books without thinking, putting them in the bag as well. Back in his room he hovered over the wardrobe for a moment. He bit the inside of his cheek, _don’t do it,_ _don’t do it_ , and did it anyways: he put his arm into the far end of the closet ( _shit it hurts_ ), retrieved his soft pink shirt, miraculously spared from yesterday’s chaos, and shoved it at the bottom of his bag. He took a moment to answer Louis’ text and was going to leave when his eye caught on the garbage bag he’d used to clean up yesterday. He eyed it for one, two beats, closed his eyes, sighed and then went over and opened it. He hesitantly put his arm in it, _dirty dirty dirty_ , rummaged a little until his fingers brushed on cardboard. He took the object out and dived right back in, repeating the process a few times until he knew he had everything. Because he knew how many there were, shit – he tried breathing deeply again as guilt rose up once more, but it made pain explode in his chest so he settled for gritting his teeth. He also shoved those at the bottom of his bag and then grabbed his key and was off the door, _just one night_. As he slowly started to go down the stairs, he resisted the urge to look back at the door. Because even though the tightness in his chest told him otherwise, he was coming back.

_Just one night._

Louis had to physically pinch his own arm behind his back to keep his face neutral when Harry came out of the building, because – fuck. _Fuck_ was the only way to explain how Harry looked right now, and how it made Louis’ inside behave: fuck. Or maybe, maybe _awful_. He was walking much too slow, grimacing at each step, had dried blood on his face and in his hair, dark circles under his eyes, and looked dragged down by the bag clenched in his right hand. At closer inspection, his clothing also looked wet, for some reason Louis wasn’t sure he wanted to learn. Hell broke loose inside Louis, who wanted to cry and scream at the same time, which seemed to become recurrent when it came to Harry. The fact that Harry had either been too out of it to realize how he looked or too tired to care clenched painfully around Louis’ heart, trying to fold it in two. The idea that he could have been there earlier if he hadn’t been stupid and had asked where Harry lived also left a sour taste on his tongue. Everything about this situation was wrong, and askew and ugly, but still, Louis was thankful. Harry was alive and breathing and he’d asked Louis for help, and those were the most important things, he reminded himself, and they would be okay. Louis just had to do everything in his power to make sure Harry never came back in this horrible place, and also make sure Louis never had to see him covered in blood, ever again. (Because that shit was engraved and would never, ever go away.) Louis was _not_ going through the panic of this week again, would not let Harry go, this time. Though even as he thought it he knew he would be unable to do anything to prevent Harry from coming back if he set his mind to it. He dismissed the thought. He had hope. Harry had texted him, and that meant something. It had to.

He remembered where he was with a jolt and blinked up at Harry. The boy was standing there, three feet away from him, tall body hunched and his arms wrapped around himself like he was trying to keep his pieces together. He looked soft, like he always did when he was tired or hurt. (Louis hated that he knew that.) Soft, tentative and lost. He shot the boy a smile.

“Hey there.”

It was soft, soft like he could only be with Harry.

Harry just looked at him and tried to smile back, but the blood on his face kinda ruined it.

“Can I hug you?”

Louis smiled fondly at how fast Harry nodded his head, his hair going everywhere.

“Okay then”, he breathed, before walking the distance between them and wrapping his arms around the taller boy, solid and warm. He held tighter as he felt Harry start to shake, and when the younger boy started crying, making the front of Louis’ sweater wet, he cried with him.

“It’s okay. I’m there. I’m right there, I’m not going anywhere, yeah? Everything’s going to be fine, I swear, we’ll make things right, yeah, it’s gonna be okay. You can cry, it’s okay, love. You’re safe now.”

He was safe, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again don't hesitate to leave comments, I love them all! Have a nice day/night!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well! Here's chapter 13, let me know what you think :)

The car ride back to Louis’ flat was silent. Louis desperately wanted to hold Harry’s hand, but he didn’t have a clue if it was okay or not, the boundaries between them blurry at most. So he carefully kept both his hands on the steering wheel and tried to focus on the road, although he couldn’t help but throw glances Harry’s way every few seconds. The boy had his head against the window, face hidden by his knotted curls. The whole car reeked of distress and defeat. Louis swallowed and actively fought the dismal mood that was trying to creep up on him. He needed to keep his head out of the water for Harry, would be no help if he drowned with him right to the bottom. He breathed deeply. Okay. He got this.

“Haz?”

“Mh.”

“We’re here.”

Louis looked at Harry worriedly. They’d been parked outside Louis’ apartment building for three whole minutes and Harry had made no attempt to move whatsoever, his head still pressed against the glass. Louis got out of the car, circled it and opened the passenger door for him.

“Come on Haz, let’s get you upstairs, yeah?”

When Harry gave no sign that he had heard him, Louis ignored the painful squeeze of his heart and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder with the softest, lightest touch possible.

“Come on. First let’s get out of the car. Can you do that, love?”

Despite how panicked he was on the inside, his voice was even and unwavering, and his hand didn’t shake when he took hold of Harry’s legs to put them out of the car and onto the ground. Harry put up no resistance, letting Louis move his body like a rag doll. It made something foul rise in the boy’s throat.

“Okay. That’s good, that’s very good. Now I’m gonna need you to stand up for me, okay love?”

Once again Harry didn’t react. Louis swallowed thickly and crouched down next to the car, moving his body so his face was in Harry’s field of view.

“Haz?”

He took Harry’s face in both of his hands and tilted it so he was forced to look him in the eyes. He looked at him meaningfully, trying to make Harry come back from wherever it was that he’d gone to, trying to inject life back into his body and into his eyes. (Because frankly, this was terrifying.)

“Haz?” he tried again.

“Yeah.”

His voice was hoarse and small, but Louis smiled nonetheless and nodded.

“Thank you. I know you don’t want to move right now, love, but we gotta get out of the car, okay?”

Harry nodded slowly and Louis sighed in relief.

They worked in tandem and Louis didn’t miss the way Harry flinched even at the slightest movement. The way to the building and up the stairs was hell, Harry wincing at every step and Louis doing his very best to keep his worry out of his voice as he whispered encouragement at him. Louis was extremely thankful they didn’t cross paths with anyone the whole time. He didn’t even want to imagine how they looked from the outside and he was in no mood to deal with concerned looks or probing questions.

It felt like an achievement when they finally made it to Louis’ door. He opened it and lead Harry to the couch, Niall thankfully being nowhere to be seen. Louis almost ran to the bathroom and came back with a box of painkillers and a washcloth. He put those on the coffee table, ran back to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water.

“Okay. First let’s give you some painkillers.”

He didn’t know who he was narrating this for, at this point. Was he trying to comfort Harry, or fill the silence to calm his own nerves and reassure himself that he was doing this right?

He took two of the painkillers and put them in Harry’s palm. Harry silently put them in his mouth and accepted the water he gave him next, swallowed them down and looked at Louis expectantly. He looked like a little puppy, looking up at him with his big eyes, simply waiting to see what would happen. Louis picked up the wet washcloth next. He hesitated a few inches away from Harry’s face.

“Can I?”

He waited until Harry nodded to bring the pink cloth to Harry’s skin, wiping the dried blood away gently. He dropped the cloth on the carpet when he was over but stayed kneeled in front of Harry, looking into his eyes. They stayed like that for a moment, blue into green, green into blue and a million emotions flashing between them. Louis slowly lifted his hand and placed it on Harry’s cheek, still looking into his eyes, his thumb softly stroking the skin there. He didn’t expect it when Harry turned his face and laid a kiss on the center of his palm.

Harry didn’t need to say it for Louis to hear his _thank you,_ and he was sure Harry heard his _always_ just as clear and loud.

Louis ran a bath for Harry, putting way too many scented products – he just wanted it to be nice for Harry, okay? The sparkly bath bomb was just screaming Harry’s name, and the lavender scented bubble product said it was “relaxing”, so. That was that. He was wary about letting Harry fend for himself to undress and get in, but he was even more wary to make Harry even more vulnerable than he already was by making him undress in front of him. More than ever the boy deserved privacy. So he settled for leaving him but never straying too far from the bathroom door, just in case. He only receded when he started hearing little sniffles and whimpers. That wasn’t Louis’ to witness, and so he went to sit on the sofa. He got a text from Niall, telling him he was at a friend’s house to give the two of them some alone time. Louis smiled and answered with a simple “ _thanks :)”_ , ignoring the “ _actually took the bus for you so you better love me”_ altogether. Then he tried distracting himself with his phone some more but eventually ended up just staring at the wall, waiting for Harry to come out. (He didn’t even have the energy to make a gay joke at that, which was very telling of the gravity of the situation.) When he did, curls wet and face soft and legs so so very long in the pajama shorts Louis had lent him, Louis wordlessly guided him to his bedroom and into his bed. Harry settled in, still wincing whenever he moved. After the two painkillers he’d taken, that wasn’t a good sign. Louis put the covers over him and forced himself to leave the room. He let Harry sleep the afternoon away and tried to write an essay that was due for next week. Mostly he just stared at his Word document and wrote and deleted stupid sentences that had nothing to do with the subject, but it was the most time he’d spent on the project in the month he’d had to prepare it, so he decided it was still a success.

“I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Louis’ voice was loud in the small place. He was kneeling in front of the couch again, his fingers holding the fabric of Harry’s shirt up so his skin was on display. He couldn’t look away from the dark ecchymosis. It bloomed all over the boy’s side, starting very dark in the middle, black and brown, then extending on his chest in shades of purple, yellow and green. It was terrifying and didn’t belong on someone like Harry. Harry should only ever be covered in baby blues, pastel pinks, bright yellows and mint greens. Only pretty, soft colors. This belonged nowhere near him and it made Louis livid.

“No.”

Harry’s voice was firmer than Louis had ever heard it, almost aggressive, and he was shocked into silence for a few seconds, looking up into Harry’s eyes. For the first time since morning, the look he gave him was sharp and very much awake, with an edge that Louis could probably cut himself on. He took the risk.

“Haz, it looks awful. We need to get it checked out.”

Harry said nothing, and Louis could see the walls rising around him, concrete and barbed wires blooming all over Louis’ living room. He didn’t back down.

“Come on, Harry. Please? I really need to take you to the hospital.”

“They’ll ask questions.”

“What about it?”

“I can’t answer.”

“Yes you can.”

Harry shot him another death glare and Louis almost, almost looked away. He didn’t, though, because this was important and he wouldn’t. Back. Down.

“Yes you can”, he repeated. “And you should. He hurt you really bad and it’s not okay, not at all, and he should be in jail for how he treated you.”

He regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth, not because he didn’t mean them – there were few things he meant _more –_ but because as soon as they were out in the open, he saw Harry close off, saw in his eyes how he locked himself in and away.

“Don’t talk about him in past tense.” was the only thing he said – low and dangerous, almost a growl.

Louis gritted his teeth. Silence grew between them like a tree, branches coming out of their chests and intertwining between them, growing into a wall that prevented them from seeing one another.

“Can I at least take you to the campus doctor?”

Harry shook his head no and Louis wanted to cry. They _needed_ a professional opinion on that awful bruise, and how was Harry going to get it if he was so damn _stubborn_?

“You might have something broken.”

“I don’t care.”

Louis breathed deeply.

“Harry. Come on. The doctor is literally two streets away. It will be over before you know it, and – and you don’t even have to say anything if you don’t want to. They can’t force you to talk and they’re obligated to treat you.”

There was a beat of silence, and Louis thought he saw something flicker in Harry’s eyes, like he was wavering. But then:

“I’m not going, Louis! Is it that hard to understand? Can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?”

He was almost screaming now, and Louis’ body reacted immediately, anger pumping into his veins, boosted by the fear already lingering in there, and before he knew it he was screaming, too.

“Harry, stop this! I’m taking you to the doctor, end of the discussion!”

His voice echoed against the walls, and Louis was taken off guard at how authoritative he sounded. He just… He just really needed Harry to go to the doctor, okay? But as he was watching Harry completely deflated, hunching his body into itself as he looked down and put his trembling hands in his lap. Then he nodded.

“O-Okay.” His voice was small and shaky and fuck, fuck, Louis never wanted that, wanted everything but that. He looked in horror as Harry stayed silent, eyes on the carpet. He despised how small and… Submissive Harry looked, hated how his face was hidden by his hair so Louis couldn’t catch his eyes and how his hands were still shaking even with how hard he was wringing them together. And all of that was Louis’ fault, joining the growing pile of _all the times Louis unintentionally hurt Harry_ in the place of his brain he didn’t like to linger in. He also knew this probably wouldn’t be the last time it grew and it _hurt_. He was very close to backtracking and telling him that it was okay, that they didn’t have to go, that they could stay there and watch movies and eat junk food all day, pretend nothing happened. He wanted to see Harry smile again, wanted to shield him and cuddle him and never let go, kiss his head and hold his hand and never go outside ever again. It _hurt_ how much he wanted to give in and do just that. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t, because Harry was hurt and they couldn’t keep ignoring that, and he needed medical help, and he needed to be safe and healthy. He hated that this was the way things went, but he couldn’t back down.

So they were going, and he would handle the guilt.

It eased Harry’s nerves a little when he saw the doctor was a woman. He watched her as she entered and left the waiting room with patients and thought that if he really had to show his injuries to a complete stranger, he’d rather it be her than anyone else. She was a petite Asian woman, with long shiny hair gathered into a low ponytail, neat and functional. She was intimidating but still, he trusted her with his body more than he would any old white man. His eyes were glued to her as he watched the way she effortlessly demanded attention by just entering the room, radiating authority, the way heads turned to her and feet followed her and the way she walked confidently and in a straight line.

He wished he was more like her and less like him.

She left the room again with a girl his age whose face was worryingly red and he was left looking at his feet. He hated waiting rooms. He felt scrutinized, like everybody was watching him. He didn’t know how to position his body, his skin felt too tight and he felt inadequate and he just – he just didn’t know how to do this properly. Louis, on the other hand, Louis seemed to know exactly what to do and how to act, making polite small talk with other people before taking a magazine – one about sports, not the girly fashion one Harry probably would have chosen, because Louis was better at being a guy than Harry could ever be and he wasn’t _weird_ – and opening it, while all Harry could do was shuffle awkwardly and bite his nails.

While they waited Harry couldn’t stop his mind from going back to earlier, and he felt his stomach drop when he thought back to screaming at Louis. He didn’t know what he was thinking. Why couldn’t he just _listen_? Louis was already graceful enough to pick Harry up and let him bathe and sleep and borrow his clothes, and Harry had gone and yelled at him, in his own home. And now everything was weird and uncomfortable between them and he wanted it all to go away. He wanted so desperately to say _sorry,_ tried to the whole way there but the words just wouldn’t leave his throat. He just wanted Louis to look at him and talk to him like before, like this hadn’t happened, like he wasn’t disappointed in Harry. _Please_. But deep down he knew he didn’t deserve that. He honestly didn’t know why Louis kept putting up with him, almost wanted to tell him to stop, to get away, but he knew he wouldn’t, because he was selfish and wasn’t ready to go back to Cameron right now. The thought of him made his heart miss a beat and he closed his eyes tightly as memories tried to make their way into his brain. It didn’t work that well. He could still feel a hand on his neck, squeezing, and a hand in his hair, tugging. And a broken jar,

jagged brain blurry eyes

lungs void tears spilling

can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe

red and red and red and red

help don’t wanna die, or do or -

“Next patient?”

Harry blinked. He looked up and the doctor was looking directly at him, as well as the entire room. It made his skin crawl. He looked at Louis next to him.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

The words sounded like they were underwater and Harry shook his head and forced himself onto his feet. His legs worked on their own as he started crossing the room on her heels. He couldn’t help but turn around when they reached the door, though, searching for Louis’ eyes and immediately finding them. The older boy gave him a soft smile and an encouraging nod and relief washed over his insides in powerful waves. Maybe Louis didn’t hate him after all, maybe he could make this right. Then he was following the doctor in the corridor and all he wanted to do was _run_ , he didn’t want her to look at his body, touch his body, ask questions, hated that she would see him like that. He didn’t want her pity and didn’t want her advice. But the image of Louis in the waiting room wouldn’t let him run. He didn’t want to see Louis’ face if Harry came back now, didn’t want to see the disappointment or maybe the anger. And so he let the exam room door close behind them, its quiet _thump_ resounding in his brain with a tone of finality. Okay. He guessed he was doing this, now. He followed her instructions and went to sit in one of the two chairs in front of her own.

“Hi, I’m doctor Linda. Welcome and thank you for trusting the campus center. Before we discuss what you are here for, I am going to need your full name, please.”

That made panic rise and boil and overflow and shit, shit, he hadn’t signed up for this.

“Everything that happens in this room will be kept confidential. We just need your name for the records.” she continued, probably in response to his distressed expression.

Harry gulped. He let himself breathe for a few moments before squeezing the words out of his body.

“Harry Edwards Styles.”

He hated how small his voice sounded. It was just as shaky as he was on the inside. She didn’t comment on it though, in fact her face didn’t change at all as she typed his answer into her computer.

“Thank you. So, Harry, what can I help you with?”

He had the sudden urge to call Louis for help, wanted him to be there with him and do all the talking. Because Louis knew what to say and he knew what to do, and Harry… He just, he didn’t. But Louis wasn’t there. He needed to

“I, um – I hurt my side and my chest really hurts.”

He let himself swallow before continuing,

“And – and there’s a few other things. Like, my nose was bleeding at some point.”

He didn’t want to talk about it all, but he remembered Louis’ words in the car: _Please tell_ _them_ _about everything, ok? It’s important._

Then he was asked to go to the exam table, and everything was blurry but he was okay, he was.

“I am going to lift up your shirt now, ok?”

He looked down at himself. It was Louis’ shirt, one that was a bit big on the other boy, a light grey and so, so soft. He nodded. Then he let her do her thing, closing his eyes and thinking about the park, the squirrels and the clouds. She listened to his breathing and then moved onto other parts of his body and he forced himself to relax. The park, the squirrels, the clouds. The park, the squirrels, the clouds. The park...

When it was all over he paid with the money Louis had given him – guilt guilt guilt, shook her hand and tried to mumble something polite before he made a beeline for the door (well – as much of a beeline as he could, when every movement sent spikes of pain in his chest). But before he could get out, though, she called him back:

“Harry?”

_So close_. He slowly turned around and looked at her warily. She rummaged around her desk for a while before walking to where he was, stopping at a respectful distance from him, which he was very thankful for, and offering him a little cardboard rectangle. He took it with tentative fingers and looked at it.

_Campus Psychological Assistance Service_

_12, King’s Street_

_020 7946 0610_

_[helpcampus@contact.com](mailto:helpcampus@contact.com) _

He looked back up at her.

“If you change your mind and decide to talk about what happened.”

Any words he could have said were stuck in his throat. They looked at each other for a few seconds longer before he lowered his head. She opened the door for him and he was out of there, her “take care!” following behind him.

Louis stared at the road ahead. _Sprained or broken rib. The rest is superficial. Can’t do anything about it, I have a prescription for painkillers and an ointment for the bruises and then I just have to wait it out._ Harry had said all that so casually, like he wasn’t surprised his boyfriend had broken one of his ribs, like he wasn’t shocked and terrified and _disgusted_. Like it was normal.

Louis felt the beginning of a headache press against his skull, and for the first time he wondered if he really was doing the right thing by trying to help Harry all on his own. The more they went, the more it became obvious just how fucked his mindset was, and Louis… Louis was just an English student and he was shit at responsibilities and he didn’t know in what world he wouldn’t fuck this up.

Harry stared out the window while Louis was in the pharmacy, buying his medicine. The little card was in his jeans pocket. He knew he wouldn’t use it, but somehow he found the thought of it comforting. Maybe because it was a small sign of somebody caring for him, even if it was a doctor, even if it was her job, and because as everyone knew, Harry was a slut for that kind or attention. _Or any kind of attention_ , Harry’s mind supplied unhelpfully.

That’s why when they got to Louis’, he carefully put the card into one of the cups before putting his clothes back over it. His collection of little shameful things was growing, and he wasn’t proud of it, he really wasn’t, but he also couldn’t deny how comforting the thought of them all chilling together at the bottom of his bag was to him.

“Hey Haz, do you want to watch that stupid kitchen show? It’s on!”

Harry smiled a little at that. Watching trashy TV and criticizing it with Louis was one of his favorite activities of all times.

“Coming!”, he shot back. He looked at his bag one last time before he turned around and walked out of the room slowly. One thing at a time. He would think about his life, about going back and about how to crawl out of the hole he’d dug for himself later; for now he could just curl up on the couch with Louis and make fun of everybody on the TV, and then probably eat greasy Chinese food until they passed out. That was more than okay with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (silently praying that nobody with actual medical knowledge reads this)


End file.
